Scotland’s national clinical director has warned it is “far too early” to move toward a five day self-isolation period for covid.
Jason Leitch said the Government is not intending to back the policy due as it poses risks.
A debate is raging on the correct balance between the time people with covid need to stay indoors and protecting staff levels in public services and businesses.
In England the self-isolation period was reduced from ten days to seven, a cut backed by the Scottish Government last week.
Nadhim Zahawi, Education Secretary in the UK Government, has gone further by saying five days would “certainly help”.
Leitch, one of the Scottish Government’s top advisers during the pandemic, reiterated the scepticism north of the border over another reduction.
He told BBC Scotland: “It is far too early to make that decision or choice. We've only just gone from ten to seven. We went from fourteen to ten, if you remember, some time ago. Now we've gone from ten to seven with quite a lot of extra steps in there - a couple of tests, vaccination, all those other things to get released if you possibly can.
“But there's no suggestion yet that we should move to five. They've done it in some limited parts of the world, but the data suggests that's a risk, particularly at higher levels of infection. So we're not intending to do that.”
It came after Scotland’s Health Secretary Humza Yousaf said “we’re not contemplating at this stage going from seven days to five."
He said yesterday: “We’ve literally just made the change from 10 days to seven days. I think it’d be sensible to see the impact and the effect of that.
“But, clearly, we’re always guided by the science.”
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