Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has revealed plans to ease the coronavirus lockdown restrictions across Scotland.
Sturgeon revealed that some children will return back to school with daily activities to be relaxed, which includes meeting friends, family and daily exercise, among some options being considered.
Sturgeon said lifting the lockdown will not be like “flipping a switch” and she insisted it will be a gradual process.
She said the R number, which is the number of people infected by each person with coronavirus, is still slightly higher in Scotland, than the UK.
Sturgeon said their “best estimate” is that the R number is between 0.7 and one, and she stressed, “We can’t be sure it is not closer to one than 0.7.”
On Thursday the restrictions will be reviewed and she said is it “highly unlikely” there will be any significant changes to the measures.
The First Minister gave a grim warning, that changes could “quickly see transmission of the virus increase again.”
Looking at data from Denmark demonstrates that if Scotland were to completely lift the lockdown “the most likely scenario would be a resurgence in the virus which would overwhelm our hospital capacity in matter of weeks.”
She said, “The hard fact is we must see further restrictions in new cases, hospital and ICU admissions and deaths to be sure the overall level of infection and the R number are lower than they are now.
“That means for the moment we do need to stick with the current lockdown restrictions.”
But Sturgeon added, the “severity of restrictions we are living under” cannot continue indefinitely.”
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