THE SCOTTISH panel informing the country's exit strategy from the Covid-19 lockdown has taken formal help from a think tank advising the German government.

Yesterday, Nicola Sturgeon said that the Scottish Government will “not rush” into an exit strategy as she announced 12 further coronavirus deaths.

The First Minister’s message was delivered amid a warning from an Oxford University professor that the lockdown was likely to do more damage than the pandemic itself.

Ms Sturgeon also warned football fans they shouldn’t expect to be able to go to professional fixtures “any time soon”.

She added that matches being played behind closed doors should be “very carefully considered”.

READ MORE: Coronavirus in Scotland: No fans at football matches 'any time soon'

At Westminster, the UK Government signalled that any substantial lifting of the lockdown restrictions was months rather than weeks away as it warned of the dangers of a “second peak” of the virus, which could deepen Britain’s health and economic crisis even further.

Last month, Ms Sturgeon set up a new expert group that would provide additional and tailored advice for Scotland from scientific experts on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

READ MORE: Coronavirus in Scotland: Plea to keep home working and cut air pollution

The panel’s analysis is sitting alongside that of the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (SAGE), which is informing the four-nation approach to the pandemic across the UK.

The First Minister said last week that it is too early for the findings to be made public by the group, led by Professor Andrew Morris, professor of medicine at Edinburgh University.

The panel has quizzed “a member of the think tank group advising the German government” - which has been leading the way in Europe for mass testing.

The topics covered in the session included plans for “contact tracing”, as well as “public opinion and compliance in Germany” along with testing capacity and “lockdown exit strategies under consideration”.

READ MORE: Herald view: We need a roadmap out of lockdown

The think tank has now been commissioned with providing advice on the current lockdown arrangements and the next steps.

Addressing the media yesterday, the First Minister confirmed that a total of 915 patients have now died in Scotland after testing positive for coronavirus, up from 903 on Sunday.

Ms Sturgeon said 8,450 people have now tested positive for the virus in Scotland, an increase of 263 from 8,187 from the previous day. There are 169 people in intensive care with confirmed coronavirus or Covid-19 symptoms, a decrease of five on Sunday, - while 1,809 people are in hospital with confirmed or suspected Covid-19.

"Towards the end of this week I will set out some of the factors that will guide our thinking for the future," the First Minister said.

But the "initial version of this work" will not set out which measures will be lifted and when, she said.

Ms Sturgeon added: "We are simply not yet in position to take those decisions in a properly informed way and I will not rush to do anything that could risk a resurgence of this virus, because to do that would risk overwhelming the national health service and it would put many more lives at risk."

READ MORE: Coronavirus: Jason Leitch: Scotland's exit strategy may differ to rest of UK's

She said the Scottish Government will set out its objective to "continue to suppress the virus while considering how even we can even gradually restore a semblance of normality to everyday life" - but some restrictions on everyday life will continue for "a while to come".

In Germany, where the same experts have been advising the Scottish Government, some restrictions have been lifted by authorities as the country tries to reboot the economy.

The Scottish Government said the disucssions were with "an external scientific adviser to the German government" who was "expressing his own views".

The Robert Koch Institute is the German Government’s main public health advisory body.

The German government is also being advised by the Leopoldina Science Association and the German Ethikrat.

Germany started gradually lifting the lockdown yesterday - with smaller shops re-opening and some schools due to welcome pupils again on May 4 - but mass gatherings will remain banned.

Shops with a surface area of up to 800 square meters were being allowed to reopen on Monday, along with car showrooms, bike shops and bookshops of any size, under an agreement reached last week between the federal and state governments.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief of staff, Helge Braun, told n-tv television that big shops "draw large numbers of people into the city centre, they have high customer numbers and that isn't possible in the first step".

The German government believes it has managed to curb the outbreak due to social distancing measures introduced after an early surge in cases.

The strategy mirrors the words of Scotland’s national clinical director, Jason Leitch, who has indicated that the number of people each person infects, the R-naught number, must remain low before any lockdown measures can be lifted.

He said: “We believe the R-naught in Scotland is below one, but we have to keep that sustained for a period of time to allow the numbers to fall.”

The Robert Koch Institute has revealed that Germany’s R-naught number has dropped to 0.7, meaning that each person carrying the virus was now, on average, infecting less than one other person.

If Scotland is to follow Germany’s path out of the lockdown, mass testing is likely to play a key role -  with Nicola Sturgeon suggesting that "test, trace and isolate" will form part of any future strategy.

The UK Government’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty has admitted that Germany “got ahead” with testing and that “there’s a lot to learn from that” - while the country's response has been routinely praised.

Last week, Professor Leitch, warned that Scotland must avoid the “doomsday scenario” of a second wave of Covid-19 and must learn from the mistakes of other countries.

Professor Leitch pointed to Hokkaido in Japan, with a similar population to Scotland, as an example of what could happen if restrictions are lifted too early on in the process.

The island lifted social distancing restrictions after five weeks only for new cases in the second wave to outnumber the initial outbreak - forcing the lockdown to be reimplemented.

Scotland's interim chief medical officer Dr Gregor Smith, said: “There’s not one country that we are looking at but many, many countries, to see what we can learn from a variety of different approaches.

“My advisory group of scientists is currently examining the strategies that are currently being deployed across more than a dozen different areas to see exactly what the impacts that those strategies are having in those countries - and also whether they would be able and feasible to be applied within our own  cultures in Scotland as well.

READ MORE: Coronavirus in Scotland: Sturgeon questions bailouts for tax haven firms

“I think it would be wrong to give the impression that we are only looking at one country - but we are trying to learn form the international community in terms of what might work as we move towards the next phase.”

Ideas being considered include possibly lifting the restrictions in phases - either for different groups of people or different parts of Scotland - while different sectors of the economy could potentially re-open at different times.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The Scottish Government CMO Covid-19 Advisory Group has regular engagement, through its expert members, with the international scientific community to share expertise and learning on responding to the pandemic.

“Learning from other countries is an important part of effectively responding to the pandemic, and the advisory group’s international connections are helpful in facilitating this learning.”

Professor Carl Heneghan, director of the centre for evidence-based medicine at Oxford University, said the lockdown was likely to do more damage than coronavirus itself.

The practising GP told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that not enough testing had been carried out.

He said: “The key is no-one has really understood how many people actually have the infection.

“You could do that really quickly with random sampling of a thousand people in London who thought they had the symptoms.

READ MORE: UK Govt signals any substantial lifting of lockdown restrictions months away as it warns of 'second peak' of virus

“You could do that in the next couple of days and get a really key handle on that problem and we’d be able to then understand coming out of lockdown much quicker.

“In fact, the damaging effect now of lockdown is going to outweigh the damaging effect of coronavirus.”

The UK Government's next review of the lockdown is expected on May 7 with the latest advice from the Government’s expert group SAGE due by the end of the month.

“The big concern is a second peak,” declared a Downing St spokesman. "That is what ultimately will do the most damage to health and the most damage to the economy. If you move too quickly, then the virus could begin to spread exponentially again.

"The public will expect us to do everything we can to stop the spread of the virus and protect lives," he added.

At the daily Downing St briefing, Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, said it would be “wrong” to speculate about lifting restrictions at this stage and people should continue to focus on abiding by the restrictions.

“At this stage of the crisis we are absolutely focused on sticking to the guidance. The First Secretary set out five tests last week for us to think about moving to the next stage; we are not there yet.”

His message came as UK hospital deaths rose 449 to 16,509; the lowest daily increase for a fortnight.

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