Contributions of the EURO 2020 football championship events to a third wave of SARS-CoV-2 in Scotland, 11 June to 7 July 2021

Abstract

In early May 2021, Scotland entered a third wave of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections. This wave was characterised by a 20-fold increase in diagnosed cases. The rapid rise, from a 7-day cumulative incidence of 21 per 100,000 population to 427 cases per 100,000 population from 4 May to 3 July 2021, occurred alongside several notable events. These included the Delta variant (Phylogenetic Assignment of Named Global Outbreak (Pango) lineage designation B.1.617.2) overtaking Alpha (B.1.1.7) as the dominant strain circulating in Scotland, a gradual relaxation of lockdown restrictions and the 2020 European football championship (EURO 2020). We used contact tracing data routinely collected through telephone interviews, undertaken as part of the ‘Test and Protect’ system implemented by the Scottish government, to describe the potential contributions of EURO 2020 to a third wave of SARS-CoV-2 in Scotland.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2021.26.31.2100707