Further measures to control coronavirus will be announced at the Scottish Parliament tomorrow, Nicola Sturgeon has said.
The Scottish Government has already said the current restrictions will last until at least the middle of February but the statement to MSPs will provide some detail on “other steps we are planning to take”, the First Minister said.
These include going further than current proposals by the UK for quarantine hotels and other measures aimed at making current travel restrictions “more effective”.
She will also update on asymptomatic community testing after pilot projects were run towards the end of last year, with councils having put forward plans for making “much more extensive use” of community testing.
The review of restrictions will set out the Scottish Government’s position on schools and nurseries, and “how and when we might be able to start to resume in-person learning and childcare”, as well as expanded testing arrangements for these.
Sturgeon told the Scottish Government’s coronavirus briefing: “Tomorrow’s statement is also going to cover some of the measures we will be taking to help us control the virus as we continue to suppress it, and in time gradually start to ease the lockdown restrictions.”
She said “the current lockdown is working” as infections are falling – with 848 new cases recorded in Scotland in the past 24 hours, with a daily test positivity rate of 9.5%.
She added: “That said, case numbers are still high, too high, much higher than we would want them to be, so we need to get them down further – then we need to keep them as low as possible.”
Scotland has recorded six deaths of coronavirus patients in the past 24 hours taking the death toll under this measure – of people who first tested positive for the virus within the previous 28 days – to 6,112.
There are 1,958 people in hospital confirmed to have Covid-19, up 17 in 24 hours. Of these, the number of patients in intensive care remains unchanged at 143.
