THE First Minster has confirmed Scotland's lockdown will continue for at least another three weeks.

Ahead of a similar announcement expected from the UK Government this afternoon, Nicola Sturgeon said the “clear advice” was to maintain restrictions into May.

She told a remotely held session of First Minister's questions that relaxing the measures ahead of conclusive evidence that the virus had been sufficiently suppressed could lead to an "extremely damaging" resurgence.

And responding to the Scottish Greens' parliamentary co leader Alison Johnson, she said a “test, trace and isolate” strategy would play a “key part” in the transitional exit from the lockdown, but would require more testing capacity and personnel.

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Sturgeon said: “Unfortunately lockdown is going to continue beyond this week.

“Cobra [the UK emergency group] will meet later on, and other governments have to reach their own decisions.

“My clear advice is that we must continue the lockdown measures for at least another three weeks.

“While we are increasingly confident that these measures are working, we are not yet confident enough that the virus has been suppressed sufficiently to lift any of these measures, because the risk of doing that would be a resurgence that would be extremely damaging.”

She also suggested there would be more intrusive technology in people’s lives which raised privacy issues, an apparent reference to the phone apps used by some countries.

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Ahead of taking questions from opposition leaders the First Minister said the relatively stagnant numbers of Covid-19 patients in hospital and intensive care in Scotland indicate lockdown measures are working.

She announced 779 people in Scotland have died after testing positive for Covid-19, a rise of 80 from 699 on Wednesday, according to Health Protection Scotland figures.

There are 196 people in intensive care with coronavirus or coronavirus symptoms as of Wednesday night, one more than the previous day, she added.

Some 1799 people are in hospital with confirmed or suspected Covid-19, up 51 from Wednesday's figure of 1748.

A total of 7102 people have now tested positive for the virus in Scotland, up 354 from 6,748 the previous day.

The First Minister said: "We do firmly believe that the lockdown is having a positive effect.

"For example, while we still see fluctuations we are not seeing at this stage significant or sustained increases in the number of people in hospital or in intensive care with the virus.

"However, we know these lockdown measures need time to work so we must continue to exercise caution in our predictions, we are by no means through this yet."

Sturgeon will take part in a meeting of Cobra later today, with officials from the UK Government and the devolved administrations.

A decision is expected to be taken on the extension of lockdown protocols.

The First Minister said: "I'm as keen as anyone to lift these restrictions, but I will not begin to do so until I am convinced that we have done as much as is necessary to suppress the virus and we have a clear plan in place to continue to contain it once these measures do start to be lifted."

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