NICOLA Sturgeon is set to unveil the Scottish Government’s Covid exit plan, but she’ll warn the public that any phased return to normality will need to be sustainable.
The First Minister has stressed that she’s keen to keep transmission of the virus low, and avoid having to place Scotland back into a stay-at-home lockdown.
She said the plans for easing restrictions would be driven by data rather than by hard and fast dates.
In today’s announcement, we’ve been told to expect “an indicative order of priority and proposed phases”.
The initial plan is for Scotland to move back to the four level restrictions that were in place before Christmas. Everyone will start at level 4 before a return to geographically variable levels. There’s to be a three week gap between each of the phases.
The Scottish Government say their immediate priorities will be getting more kids back into school, followed by sports activities for young people and limited social interaction for adults.
Speaking ahead of the announcement, she said:“We know we cannot continue in lockdown indefinitely and we must plan a gradual phased return to as much normality as possible.
“The restrictions we have put in place are difficult for individuals, families and businesses across Scotland, but they are working – case numbers have decreased, the numbers of people in hospital and needing intensive care are coming down and we are now seeing fewer vulnerable people dying from this horrible illness. This means we can begin to consider how, carefully and gradually, we can return to some normality in Scotland.”
Speaking at the briefing, she said her roadmap would be “broadly similar” to Johnson’s exit plan for England.
She said: “There is a limit to how much it is sensible to diverge in the circumstances we’re facing in common but clearly we will make our own judgments about the particular order and the particular timing of that because the data is not identical in each of the four nations.”
The announcement is expected at around 2.10pm.
It will be broadcast on BBC One Scotland, BBC Scotland, and Scottish Parliament TV, which you can watch online here.
You can also follow live updates on The National’s coronavirus blog.
In the coming weeks, only subscribers will be able to comment on The National articles. Subscribe now or log in to make sure you stay a part of the conversation.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions. What should we do with our second vote in 2021? What happens if Westminster says no to indyref2?
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversation, register under fake names, and post vile abuse. We’ve had hundreds of emails from you complaining about this, asking us to take steps to ensure that these people aren’t given a platform on our site.
We’re listening to you, and here’s how we plan to make that happen.
We have decided to make the ability to comment only available to our 10,000 paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them.
We’ll be monitoring this change over the first few weeks, and we’re keen to know your thoughts. Email us at letters@thenational.scot if you want to have your say.
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Last Updated:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment?
Report This Comment