Normal life will not resume in Scotland from this summer, leading coronavirus advisors have said.
According to senior sources at SAGE, measures such as social distancing could be in place for at least another year, with other restrictions also expected to continue for longer.
It comes as Scotland eased a number of restrictions on Monday, with a raft of other rules to be relaxed on April 26.
When setting out her roadmap out of lockdown, Nicola Sturgeon had said that a much more normal version of life is hoped to resume in June, with PM Boris Johnson also stating 'normal life' in England will start from June 21.
However, SAGE sources have reportedly said that while the vaccination stops most people getting sick and dying from Covid they 'are not good enough' to see all restrictions lifted 'without a big epidemic', reports the Mirror.
Experts also added that some version of 'baseline measures', such as social distancing, will still have to be in place even if other restrictions are eased to protect the country from another spike in infection.
In papers released by SAGE the expert group was said to be confident that easing lockdown restrictions would not heap pressure on the NHS, even if there is a rise in infections, due to the success of the jab rollout.
But the advisory panel is not as optimistic about the later stages of the roadmap.
In a stark warning the papers claimed it is 'highly likely that there will be a further resurgence in hospitalisations and deaths.'
SAGE cited work compiled by the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M), which looked at models made by Imperial College London, Warwick University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
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