NICOLA Sturgeon has said progress in tackling coronavirus in the UK must not be jeopardised by “too lax a position on international travel”.
The First Minister has argued that opening up overseas travel risks importing new strains of the virus, which vaccines may be less effective against.
Rules in Scotland require all travellers arriving from overseas to self-isolate in a designated quarantine hotel for at least 10 days.
Sturgeon said the Scottish Government continues to urge the UK to implement the same approach.
Her comments came as Prime Minister Boris Johnson prepares to travel to India, where a new variant of Covid-19 has been identified.
Sturgeon, speaking on the Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme, said that the Indian strain is classed as a “variant of interest, rather than a variant of concern”.
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However, she said: “I think the thing we have got to recognise about Covid is that it is mutating and we are seeing new variants appear in different parts of the world.
“We don’t know where the variants of real concern are going to come from, which is why an approach to travel that tries to categorise risk, with some countries categorised as red-list countries and other countries deemed to be safer, I think poses a risk.
“Because none of us know right now where the next variant that might be really problematic is going to occur.”
The First Minister insisted: “We have got to be very careful as we continue to suppress things at home, we don’t allow it to be reseeded with more dangerous variants from elsewhere.”
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She explained how last summer Scotland had “almost eliminated the strains that were circulating”, but conceded that “we probably opened up international travel too quickly, so we allowed the virus to reseed into our domestic population”.
Sturgeon continued: “I think it is important we try as hard as we can to avoid that in the weeks and months ahead.”
Yet she accepted that this approach is “really difficult for the aviation sector, airports, tourism” – emphasising that these businesses need to be supported.
But she said: “The big risk that we face, not just in Scotland but across the UK right now is the importation of new variants of the virus, variants that might be faster spreading, that might be more severe and crucially variants that might undermine the efficacy of the vaccine.
“So we’ve got to be very careful about that.
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“Which is why I think one of the restrictions we’re all going to have to live with for longer is a restriction on international travel.
“In Scotland, we insist that people quarantine in managed isolation wherever in the world they come from if they come directly into Scotland, and we continue to try to persuade the UK Government to take a similar approach.
“Because we mustn’t allow the progress we are making domestically to be undermined by too lax a position on international travel.
“It is very difficult for the sector and it is important governments support it as we try to continue to protect ourselves against the virus.”
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