NICOLA Sturgeon will announce today whether lockdown will be extended beyond the end of January and if schools should remain closed to most pupils in February.
Speaking at yesterday’s daily briefing on the pandemic she said the Scottish Cabinet would review the current restrictions when it meets today, with the First Minister then giving a statement to Holyrood later in the day.
“We will look at the latest data and come to a view on where we are and whether we need to extend the lockdown restrictions to further suppress the virus,” she said.
Later she was asked about whether schools would remain closed during February to most pupils with remote learning in place for students.
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“As soon as we have taken a decision, I will set that out to Parliament. I think that is the best and fairest way of proceeding,” she responded.
“I would say we want to get schools back as quickly as we possibly can, it is not in the interests of kids to be out of school for any longer than is absolutely necessary but community transmission has always been a key factor in these decisions.”
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But she also said she did not want to raise parents’ expectations that schools will reopen next month.
Following the imposition of Scotland’s second lockdown caused by a spike in Covid-19 prevalence, the schools were moved to online learning for most pupils, with only those deemed vulnerable and the children of key workers attending in-person classes. Initially, the lockdown and the closure of schools was due to last until February 1.
Sturgeon said at the coronavirus briefing in Edinburgh yesterday she did not want to speculate on what the decision may be.
The First Minister said it was not yet clear if lockdown, including the return of schools, could be lifted in Scotland.
She said: “We are seeing some positive signs from the numbers that lockdown is starting to stabilise things and hopefully starting to tip them into decline but transmission is still higher than we would want it to be. I’m not going to raise expectations about schools being back on February 1 but nor am I going to stand here and make assumptions about a decision we’re not going to take until tomorrow.”
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During the briefing she said consideration was being given to whether hotels could be used for people coming to the country from outside the UK who had to self-isolate. She also said £5 million of Scottish Government cash was being used to establish an NHS medicines delivery service.
A total of 1429 positive coronavirus tests were recorded in the past 24 hours. No deaths were recorded with the number of fatalities of people who first tested positive for the virus within the previous 28 days at 5305. The daily test positivity rate is 12.3%, up from 9.5%.
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