‘STUBBORNLY high” levels of coronavirus in some council areas could see them placed under level 4 restrictions to give more flexibility for a “limited and careful easing” of the rules over Christmas, the First Minister has said.

Nicola Sturgeon said officials were considering if current limitations were reducing infection rates quickly enough in some areas – “particularly in parts of the west of Scotland that have a stable but still stubbornly high prevalence of the virus”.

Her Cabinet will decide this morning on any changes to where councils are in Scotland’s five-tier system and she will make a statement to MSPs this afternoon.

Sturgeon’s comments came yesterday at the Scottish Government’s daily briefing as she announced a further six people had died from Covid-19 and 717 positive cases had been reported in the preceding 24 hours, lower than expected.

She said high infection rates were causing concern and meant there was not the required level of assurance that hospital and ICU services could cope as winter progresses.

“Stubbornly high prevalence means that we might have less flexibility to offer some limited and careful easing of restrictions over the Christmas period which we are very keen to do,” she said.

“Moving to level 4 restrictions for a limited period in some areas, while not a decision we would ever take lightly because of the wider economic and social impact, would help us to address both of these concerns.”

Any such restrictions on local authority areas were intended to be for a “short time”, she insisted, adding that it was her intention to ensure schools remain open.

Sturgeon revealed that one local authority will have reduced restrictions in today’s announcement, but urged people to adhere to local measures: “Every time we stop someone, especially someone who is older and more vulnerable, then we give them a chance of living into the era – which is firmly on the horizon – where better therapies, vaccines, testing and treatments will be available.

“I think that motivation as we are living under these restrictions right now is important to bear in mind.

“The end is not quite with us but we can see hope on the horizon now that we couldn’t see just a few weeks ago.”

On the daily figures, she said the positivity rate was 8.3%, up from 7.2% on Sunday, and of the new cases, 220 were in Greater Glasgow and Clyde, 136 in Lanarkshire and 101 in Lothian. There were 1227 people in hospital confirmed to have the virus, a fall of 14 in 24 hours and of these, 98 were in intensive care, down by two. The Scottish death toll is now 3286.

Sturgeon said care home residents will be given iPads to help keep in touch with family and friends, with “one or two” of the devices being given to every such facility for personal calls and medical consultations.

She said they would not be a “substitute” for in-person visits but could allow residents to see and speak to loved ones when visits were restricted.

Funding had been committed to providing all care homes in Scotland with at least one tablet.

“This will enable more than 1400 care homes to help their residents to stay connected with family and friends while visiting remains restricted,” said Sturgeon. “It will also help clinicians such as GPs or speech and language therapists with remote consultations when that is necessary.

“That will allow them to assess residents health conditions without always needing to visit in person.”

The Scottish Government later confirmed that £1 million had been identified to fund the iPad project.

Sturgeon also insisted that three new coronavirus testing laboratories in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow would be ready by the end of the year, giving Scotland the capacity to process 65,000 tests every day by December 31.

The megalabs are key to Scottish Government plans to increase capacity, but there had been weekend speculation that they might not be ready in time.

However, Sturgeon retorted: “I want to take the opportunity today to stress that all three of them are on track to open before the end of this year.”