Nicola Sturgeon said today she is confident that the situation in the Granite City is gradually being "brought under control" but national clinical director Professor Jason Leitch warned that such outbreaks are likely to take weeks to get on top of. The First Minister said today there have been 328 cases in the North east since July 26, with 198 believed to be linked to the Aberdeen outbreak. There have been more than 1000 contacts identified linked to the outbreak. "Contact tracing continues for what remains a very large and very complex outbreak," Ms Sturgeon said. "We will continue to see new cases and new contacts identified in Aberdeen in the coming days. "But we are hopeful that this is an outbreak that will be brought firmly under control." The rate of increase has slowed in Aberdeen, but Prof Leitch warned that major clusters are likely to last weeks before the "curve" starts to bend downwards indicating a fall in fresh cases. "In Grampian we think the curve has slowed," he said. "The acceleration has slowed but we haven't yet bent the curve. In Melbourne, it took four weeks of their six week proposed lockdown in order to bend the curve. "This weekend is week three of the Aberdeen lockdown. This virus unfortunately doesn't behave in 24 hour cycles - it behaves in week, fortnightly three week cycles." A message from the Editor: Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you. The dramatic events of 2020 are having a major impact on many of our advertisers - and consequently the revenue we receive. We are now more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription to support our journalism. Subscribe to scotsman.com and enjoy unlimited access to Scottish news and information online and on our app. Visit https://www.scotsman.com/subscriptions now to sign up. By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website. Joy Yates Editorial Director