THOUSANDS of people are calling for Scotland’s Border with England to be closed to “all but essential traffic” amid growing fears of a second wave of Covid-19.
Global public health expert Devi Sridhar has said Scotland could be able to eradicate coronavirus by the end of the summer, but this progress depends on the “challenge” of keeping the virus at a very low level. There have been no Covid-19 deaths in Scotland for four days in a row.
Meanwhile, scientists have warned that England will see a further 30,000 deaths over the next nine months if the virus stays at its current levels.
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon refuses to rule out quarantine for entrants from rest of UK
South of the Border, the UK Government has decided to impose a local lockdown on the city of Leicester after 10% of all positive coronavirus cases in England were detected there last week.
Some health experts are concerned that England has reopened from lockdown too quickly – and are fearful that scenes in other countries, which have returned to some kind of normality and seen cases spike as a result, could be repeated here in the UK.
Now more than 6000 people have signed a petition calling for the Scottish Government to be given powers to limit visitors travelled across the Border.
The change.org petition warns: “There is about to be a massive second wave of this new virus in England due to Tory ineptitude.
“The borders of both Scotland and Wales should be closed to all but essential traffic ie commerce, not casual trips that are in fact international from a COVID hot spot about to get worse.
“I beseech UK Gov to give this power to the devolved nations. This is at this time imperative to save thousands and thousands of lives.”
The petition hit the 6000 signatures mark as the First Minister refused to rule out enforcing quarantine measures on people arriving into Scotland from England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
While Nicola Sturgeon said she was not planning something like that currently, she would consider it “if it is required from a public health perspective”.
She stressed the Scottish Government’s virus strategy is to “get as close to elimination as possible” but warned the UK Government was “letting it circulate at higher levels”.
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