NICOLA Sturgeon has stressed that she has had “no advice given to me” that suggested the two-metre social distancing rule should be relaxed – warning a change would potentially require stricter rules on wearing face coverings.
Speculation is mounting that Boris Johnson is considering relaxing the rule that those from different households should not be less that two metres apart, a pivotal part of social distancing measures to combat the spread of the Covid-19 outbreak.
The UK Government is reportedly considering the change in a bid to allay the fears of businesses, particularly those in the hospitality industry, but expert panel the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) has suggested there is no scientific evidence for a shift.
Despite the speculation south of the Border, Ms Sturgeon said the Scottish Government “will fundamentally take the decision we think is the right one”.
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The First Minister said that as far as she was aware, the UK Government has been given no scientific evidence to suggest that the two-metre rule should be relaxed.
She said: “I understand the challenges that all businesses are going to face in adapting to the Covid world that we are going to be living in for some time. To become operational while not allowing the virus to spread is not going to be easy and we are talking to businesses across all sectors of the economy as we work to put guidance in place for how they do that. Clearly, that’s going to be more difficult in some sectors than it will be in others.
“I have had no advice given to me and to the best of my knowledge, although I obviously don’t see all the advice that the UK Government gets, I’ve not seen anything they have had that would advise a change in the 2-metre rule right now. On the contrary, most of the advice I see says the two-metre rules should be retained.”
The First Minister said any decision to reduce the two-metre rule would likely result in reducing the time a person can spent with those from other households before becoming a “close contact as part of any test, trace and isolate scheme.
She also waned that if the two-metre rule was to be relaxed, stricter rules would likely be needed requiring people to wear face coverings.
She said: “Right now, we say a close contact will be two metres for 15 minutes or more. If you go to one metre, that will have an impact on the length of time you can be that close of somebody and also it would have implications for face coverings.
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“This is not a simple equation, it is a complex decision to take and one that has to be very soundly and carefully based.”
Ms Sturgeon added: “The key point I make today is that all of the evidence and advice I have seen, up until now would say that we should retain the two-metre rule.
“If that changes in future, we will consider that as we always do, but that is not the case at the moment. Two metres is very much what the advice is steering us towards right now.”
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