Ten young children were in hospital after being struck down with coronavirus last week, Humza Yousaf has confirmed.
The Health Secretary announced the 0 to nine year olds were being treated in wards across Scotland after contracting the deadly virus.
It comes as cases and hospitalisations have risen in parts of the country due to the so-called Indian variant which is believed to be more transmissible than previous strains.
Yesterday, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced that some council areas in the central belt would remain in Level 2 lockdown due to the rise in cases.
It comes as Yousaf and National Clinical Director Professor Jason Leitch said earlier today Scotland is currently in the "foothills" of a third covid-19 wave.
On the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme, Yousaf was asked about the levels system after a business owner who owns a soft play centre said it was "moronic" that a parent could take their child to a centre in a different council area, leaving him out of pocket.
Yousaf replied: "When I look at the hospital data for last week there was 10 young children, 0-9 years old, who were hospitalised because of covid.
"The risk if somebody did that, travel from a Level 2 area into a Level 1 area or took their children into a soft play area could lead to hospitalisation of children.
"I'm not going to send the police out to police soft play areas.
"We require people to exercise their own judgement, personal responsibility, know the rules and hopefully follow them."
According to the NHS children get covid "less often than adults and it's usually less serious".
The main symptoms are:
- A high temperature
- A new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot, for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours
- A loss or change to sense of smell or taste – this means they cannot smell or taste anything, or things smell or taste different to normal
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