NICOLA Sturgeon has warned Scots against heading overseas at the moment, saying she would personally not be booking a foreign holiday at the moment.
The First Minister’s comments come amid “a worrying resurgence of Covid cases” in Europe.
Over the weekend, the Scottish Government re-introduced a 14-day quarantine on holidaymakers returning from Spain, just days after it had been lifted.
Speaking at the coronavirus briefing, the First Minister said holidaymakers should not assume that quarantine rules will be the same when they get back from their trip as they were when they left.
Parts of Belgium and Spain, along with Germany and France, have seen recent outbreaks of coronavirus.
The First Minister said: “You cannot assume the rules applying to your destination will stay the same when you are there or be the same when you travel home.
“My advice to you remains to be very cautious about non-essential foreign travel at this time.”
She said: "I remain highly concerned, possibly increasingly concerned again, about the Covid risk.
"We are currently seeing a worrying resurgence of Covid cases, not just in far away parts of the world, but also in several countries across Europe right now."
The First Minister said she understood that many people would like to book a holiday for “some sunshine”.
She added: “You are all responsible adults but I don’t want people to come back and say I didn’t give advice.”
Sturgeon continued: "I would love to give certainty and predictability on this but it is not in the nature of what we are dealing with.”
She said people need to "factor in the uncertainty".
Sturgeon added: "If you want to go overseas that's up to you but I don't want you to do so without being clear about the uncertainties."
She told the briefing: "I take no pleasure in saying this because of the impact on individuals and industries that are very important to Scotland - but right now be very, very cautious about booking foreign travel that is not essential.
"You don't know that if you're in a country they may change their regulations and you might find yourself restricted in that country, and then when you come home you might find that the quarantine rules have changed here.
"Unfortunately that's the nature of what we're dealing with right now, so I want to be really blunt and really clear with people.
"If you were asking me, I wouldn't be booking a foreign holiday right now because of these reasons. I would be choosing, if I had the time to go on holiday, I'd be choosing to spend it here in Scotland."
Dr Nicola Steedman, Deputy Chief Medical Officer said that "nowhere is completely safe".
She added: "It is a global pandemic. We run the risk, because numbers are so low in Scotland that we think it’s gone away. It hasn’t.
“In a few weeks time we don’t want to be in the position some other countries are in, when numbers were low but have shot up. The risk is still there and the risk is real. I would love to give a list of places but I can’t.”
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