Nicola Sturgeon is facing desperate calls to keep North and South Lanarkshire out of the new highest level-four covid restrictions.
A joint letter was sent to the First Minister from police chief Alan Waddell, the chief executives of both North and South Lanarkshire Council and the healthboard’s chief executive Heather Knox urging her to keep the region at level three, broadly where it is now.
It follows approval of Scotland’s new five-tier system yesterday, and ahead of an expected final decision on alert levels on Thursday.
The Lanarkshire letter to Sturgeon states: “While we agree that virus transmission and health analysis is the primary basis on which decisions should be considered, we do not believe the most up-to-date statistics support a move to level four.”
The letter provides statistics and trends to show progress in dealing with infection and warns there will be a major economic and social cost of harsher restrictions.
“Against that backdrop, and the significant additional harms and consequences we have set out for level four when compared with the other levels, we would urge the Scottish Government to place Lanarkshire in level three of the restrictions and assume that its neighbouring authorities will be in a similar position,” the letter adds.
