NICOLA Sturgeon has stressed Scotland has reached a “critical moment” in turning the tide in suppressing the Covid-19 outbreak – and has pleaded with the public to stick with the lockdown rules.
The First Minister said she understands why some members of the public are “frustrated” with the restrictive measures but has appealed to the public to carry on complying – in a bid to see the lockdown lifted sooner.
She told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme that polling data shows "support for these measures remains very, very high".
Ms Sturgeon said: "We're at such a critical moment now. Every day I am able to look at data that says we are going in the right direction, but we haven't gone yet sufficiently in the right direction to be confident that easing up won't send us back.
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"With every day that passes hopefully that position gets stronger and more certain and so I want to start getting us back to some semblance of normality as quickly as possible, so the more we stick with it in the immediate days ahead, the easier and the quicker that will be."
While there have been suggestions the lockdown is fraying, with more people on the roads and large queues at reopened drive-through coffee shops, Ms Sturgeon insisted the public have been "magnificent".
She added: "Obviously we do as government lots of tracking of public opinion, and that shows, and that is less anecdotal, that support for these measures remains very, very high.
"But this is the anecdotal bit, most of the people who contact me are saying 'please don't lift this prematurely and risk a resurgence' as opposed to people saying 'we're so fed up of this we're going to start doing what we like'.
"These will always be very careful balances but I have to try and reach the best possible decisions based on all of the evidence, and it will be a balance."
Lockdown measures are due to be reviewed formally on Thursday but Ms Sturgeon has already warned it is unlikely significant changes will be made, stressing the "need to make sure at this critical juncture we don't take action that could send the progress we are making into reverse".
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She said even when rules are eased, measures such as social distancing and wearing face coverings where appropriate will be even more important.
The First Minister said: "We are all going to continue to have social distancing as we get back to work, as life starts to get back to normal, social distancing, hygiene, wearing face coverings where it is appropriate, all of that becomes more important as we start to interact more with each other.
"This is horrendously challenging for everyone and we're all going to have to work through it as we try to keep people as safe as possible."
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