RICHARD Leonard has called for the ban on home visiting to be lifted on Christmas Day, saying a “rigid approach” would lead to Scots flouting the rules.
In an interview with the I newspaper, the Scottish Labour leader said the government needed to be “a bit more responsive to the human condition.”
His call echoes remarks made last week by John Keenan, the Bishop of Paisley, who called for a coronavirus “amnesty” on Christmas day.
Leonard said: “We think there needs to be an attempt to try to find sensible, special guidelines for Christmas.
“If we can have special guidelines for Halloween, surely we can have special guidelines for Christmas which are a bit more responsive to the human condition.
“If we are still at the point of having restrictions that prevent household-to-household contact indoors, then maybe there could be a relaxation of that for example.”
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He continued: “If there is a wholly rigid approach to this, the danger then is that people will flout not just a ‘no household contact’ rule but other rules that have been laid down.
“There needs to be an understanding that out there in the real world, people are looking for some respite at Christmas.”
Leonard called on Nicola Sturgeon to make an announcement soon.
“There is a danger that people’s heads will go down and there will be a growing spirit of pessimism, and I don’t think that’s good either for people’s mental welfare or for the societal need for people to cooperate with the guidelines and the restrictions,” he added.
Last weekend, Bishop Keenan, writing in the Sunday Times, urged authorities to consider a one-day "circuit-breaker" to allow loved ones to mix on Christmas Day. He compared it to the temporary ceasefire enacted on the Western Front during the First World War.
The bishop also said that "great care" would have to be taken with this to protect the vulnerable and the elderly, but raised the risk of "emptiness, loneliness and hopelessness at what should be the happiest time of year".
However, deputy chief medical officer Dr Nicola Steedman warned that the virus wouldn’t be any less contagious just because it’s a holiday.
She told BBC Scotland’s Seven Days programme: “I’ve heard this referred to as an ‘amnesty’, a little bit like the previous amnesties on Christmas day in the world war.
“The difficulty with this particular amnesty is that our opponent, if you like, hasn’t agreed to the amnesty. This is not something Covid has signed up to and said: ‘Well yes I’ll stop infecting people on Christmas day and you can all just go about your business.’”
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