FAST food and takeaway chains such as McDonald’s and Burger King may have to stop selling takeaways amid new restrictions being considered by the Scottish Government.
Nicola Sturgeon has warned ministers are looking at bringing in curbs on click and collect retail and fast-food restaurant services.
The First Minister said her Cabinet would discuss whether to introduce further restrictions in these areas when they meet tomorrow morning.
“The kind of issues we will be looking at – do we have to tighten up to reduce the number of people who are moving around any further?
“I talked last week about perhaps reducing click and collect, essential retail only, to maybe looking at further restrictions on takeaways,” she said.
She added that ministers had “not reached decisions” yet but that “these are the type of things we will be considering at our meeting tomorrow” before setting out the Government’s decision.
Her intervention follows comments made by Deputy First Minister John Swinney yesterday that further restrictions may be needed to contain the spread of the virus.
In a joint letter to the Scottish Economy Secretary Fiona Hyslop, retail groups expressed frustration that more restrictions could be imposed on the sector so soon after the latest changes.
Retailers say the latest “sudden and unexpected pronouncement” made at the Government’s coronavirus briefing means “forward visibility and certainty is being eroded” for shops.
They describe click and collect services as a “lifeline” for struggling businesses amid the forced closure of all non-essential shops and express concern at the apparent lack of evidence for such a move.
The letter is signed by the leaders of the Scottish Retail Consortium, the Booksellers Association of the UK & Ireland, the Horticultural Trades Association, the British Independent Retailers Association (Bira), and the Radio, Electrical and Television Retailers’ Association (Retra).
At yesterday’s Scottish Government briefing, Sturgeon revealed that Scotland had recorded one death from coronavirus and 1782 positive tests in the previous 24 hours. It brings the death toll under this measure – of people who first tested positive for the virus within the previous 28 days – to 4969.
She said 151,548 people have now tested positive in Scotland, up from 149,766 the previous day. The daily test positivity rate was 11.5%, up from 10% on the previous day.
Of the new cases, 595 were in Greater Glasgow and Clyde, 307 in Lanarkshire, 194 in Lothian, and 144 in Ayrshire and Arran. There were 1664 people in hospital confirmed to have the virus, up 126 in 24 hours. Of these patients, 126 are in intensive care, an increase of three.
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