BUSINESS leaders will have breathed a collective sigh of relief after Nicola Sturgeon confirmed pubs, restaurants and hotels are to re-open form July 15.

Traders have been working to that “indicative date” for weeks, but the First Minister’s decision last month to delay beer gardens re-opening will have led to a nervous wait for industries already facing an uncertain future.

But the Scottish Government is still yet to tell pubs, restaurants, shops, hairdressers and public transport providers what they must do in order to chop the much-hated two-metre social distancing rule in half when they do re-open their doors.

The Scottish Chambers of Commerce, which has unsurprisingly welcomed today’s announcement, has warned that the detail of what businesses will need to do to reduce social distancing “is needed now”.

Questions remain over what role face coverings will play in allowing strangers to mingle closer together – with clear problems when people are scoffing on food in a restaurant for the first time in months or catching up with friends while knocking back a pint in a pub.

READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon: Pubs to reopen next week and Scots can meet indoors from tomorrow

The First Minister stressed that people should “avoid, literally like the plague, crowded places" while putting on a face covering in a shop should now be "as automatic as putting on a seatbelt in a car".

Face coverings in shops are to be legally worn from tomorrow – and they have been compulsory on buses and trains for weeks. But anecdotal evidence suggests that the majority of those on public transport are not wearing them – which could lead to many shunning buses and jumping in their cars if they feel it is not safe.

Scotrail has very much taken a hands-off approach to face coverings – responding to customer concerns on social media that rules are not being met by passing the buck onto British Transport Police, whose remit it is to enforce the rules, adding that “people need to take personal responsibility for their own actions”.

The same worries could exist for shops if retail workers are not being asked to refuse entry to anyone not wearing a face covering.

The Herald: The phase three measuresThe phase three measures

But despite the blueprint today that the First Minister acknowledged was the most significant milestone in bringing back a sense of normality to Scottish life since the start of the lockdown, she stressed that as more indoor spaces re-open, it will become “a time of real danger”.

Scotland is not out of the woods yet.

The biggest risk to a second surge of the virus taking hold is now from importing it from other places.

The decision to require people entering Scotland from Spain to quarantine for two weeks illustrates how much of a danger the Scottish Government believes could come from abroad - with the First Minster refusing to “compromise what we are trying to do” to eradicate the virus.

But there was an acknowledgement, once again, that Scotland could look at measures to restrict the virus being imported from other parts of the UK.

Critics will point to the SNP wanting to do things differently because they can, but in Scotland, for every 100,000 people, it is thought that 28 people have Covid-19. In the UK as a whole, that rate is believed to be around 180.