Nicola Sturgeon wants to impose new travel Covid-19 restrictions to stop the spread of the Omicron variant but says she doesn’t want to spoil Christmas.
The First Minister was speaking today (November 29) at an emergency coronavirus briefing as the new variant spreads across the globe.
For all the latest please see our live blog here
Ms Sturgeon has called for everyone to self-isolate for eight days upon arriving home from foreign travel to try and beat the new variant.
Restrictions have already been increased but Ms Sturgeon says there is a need for more to reduce transmission at home now cases of the Omicron variant have been detected in Scotland.
Ms Sturgeon says the situation “remains stable” but also said “there is a huge amount we don’t know yet.”
Speaking at a Scottish Government briefing, she said: “What we do know at this stage confirms in my view that we should treat it seriously and that we should continue to act on a precautionary basis at this stage.
“While we all hope that the emerging understanding of it will reduce rather than increase our level of concern, there is no doubt that this presents potentially the most challenging development in the course of the pandemic for quite some time.”
The First Minister now wants a four-nations approach and has written to Boris Johnson making this request.
Ms Sturgeon also asked for facemask usage to become prevalent again and wants more people to work from home where possible,
Asked about Christmas, the First Minister says she is not asking anyone to put their Christmas plans on hold.
She repeated that she is requesting members of the public to step up their compliance of existing rules - particularly regarding the use of face masks and regular lateral flow testing.
John Swinney said that some of the Omicron variant cases identified in Scotland have no travel history, which suggests there is a degree of community transmission.
The Deputy First Minister said: “We obviously have some travel history on some of the cases, I don’t have all of that detail available to me at this stage, but on some of the cases we are aware that there is no travel history involved on some of the cases.
“So what that tells us is that there must be a degree of community transmission of this particular strain of the virus in the absence of direct travel connection for some of the cases in the southern African area.
“So that obviously opens up further challenges for us in terms of interrupting the spread of this particular strain of the virus and that will be the focus of the contact tracing operation that is under way already.”
