Nicola Sturgeon has announced that all of mainland Scotland will going into level four lockdown from Boxing Day.
Speaking at an emergency coronavirus briefing held tonight (19 December), the First Minister said that the "new variant" of coronavirus that poses a "very serious situation".
This has saw five-day relaxation of rules scrapped by the Scottish Government, with people only allowed to bubble on Christmas Day.
However, this will be followed by a three-week level four lockdown across all of mainland Scotland, the First Minister has announced.
She said: "Now, beyond Christmas, because of this new strain, we also need to make some changes today to limit as fast as we can, the risk of the strain spreading further than it has within Scotland.
"We intend to apply level four measures to all of mainland Scotland for a period of three weeks from one minute after midnight on Boxing Day morning.
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"The exception to that will be Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles, and the other island communities who have reduced restrictions in recent weeks."
Level four carries the toughest restrictions, with the likes of gyms and non-essential retail ordered to close, and is most similar to the national lockdown experienced in March.
