NICOLA Sturgeon announced sweeping changes to restriction levels yesterday – including bringing Glasgow down to level 2.

The First Minister was giving a statement in the Scottish Parliament where she told MSPs that some areas of Scotland will move down a level to less stringent levels, while others will not.

There are a number of areas that will remain in level 2, despite having previously been planned to move down to level 1 this weekend.

These areas are: Edinburgh, Midlothian, Dundee, East Dunbartonshire, Renfrewshire, East Renfrewshire, East Ayrshire, North Ayrshire, South Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire, South Lanarkshire, Clackmannanshire and Stirling.

The First Minister said that the decision to keep these areas on level 2 would be “very disappointing” for businesses hoping to reopen under Level 1, but said that financial support would be in place.

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Finance Secretary Kate Forbes is due to announce the details of this support today.

Glasgow, which has remained under level 3 while the rest of the country moved down to level 2, will finally be able to see some restrictions ease after more than eight months.

Under these restrictions, up to six people from three households can meet in a private home overnight, six people from three households can meet indoors in a restaurant or cafe, and eight people from eight households will be able to meet outdoors.

It comes as case numbers in Glasgow have “fallen slightly” from 146 per 100,000 people to 129.

Sturgeon said that she was pleased that the situation in Glasgow “appeared to be stabilising” and that the major public health interventions in the city are having an impact.

Although hospital admissions are rising, Sturgeon added that “the vaccination effect means at this stage they are not increasing as fast as they might have done from a similar level of cases earlier in the year”.

Speaking to Parliament, the First Minister said: “It’s also important of course we consider the harms caused by the virus alongside the other harms that ongoing restrictions cause.

“These include wider health harms, social harms and economic harms, and these wider harms are not insignificant in Glasgow given that it is now more than eight months, for example, we were last allowed to visit each other in our homes.

The First Minister added that with the support of the Incident Management Team, Glasgow will move down to level 2 from midnight on Friday into Saturday.

She said: “This means that people in Glasgow, as has been the case in most of the rest of Scotland since mid May, will be able to meet in homes in no more than six from a maximum of three households.

“It also means that indoor licenced hospitality can reopen and that people can travel again between Glasgow and other parts of Scotland.

A number of venues will also be permitted to reopen and outdoor adult contact sports can resume.

“These changes are significant as someone who lives in Glasgow I know they will make a huge difference to quality of life.”

Meanwhile, other local authority areas in Scotland have seen a marked drop in Covid cases and will be allowed to move into level 1 from one minute past midnight on Saturday, June 5.

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These areas are: Highland, Argyll and Bute, Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Moray, Angus, Perth and Kinross, Falkirk, Fife, Inverclyde, East Lothian, West Lothian, West Dunbartonshire, Dumfries

and Galloway, and the Scottish Borders.

In level 1 all entertainment venues can open – except nightclubs and adult entertainment – as well as public buildings and visitor attractions.

And some lucky areas which were already in level 1 will be moving down to level 0. These are Shetland, Orkney and Comhairle nan Eilean, as well as other small, remote islands.

Sturgeon said that she would remind anyone traveling to any of the islands to use a lateral flow test before doing so in order to minimise the risk of importing the virus to those communities.

The First Minister also announced that there were 478 new positive cases of Covid-19 recorded in Scotland in the previous 24 hours.

This represented 3.1% of the tests conducted. She also said that no deaths were recorded in Scotland of people who had tested positive for Covid in the 28 days prior.