NICOLA Sturgeon has warned the Scottish public she may be forced to “put the brakes on” easing any further lockdown restrictions as cases continue to rise.
The First Minister pointed to an average of 152 cases being reported a day over the last week – a stark rise from six weeks ago, when the average daily case number was just 14.
Speaking at her daily media briefing, Ms Sturgeon warned that people should not think “we no longer need to worry” about the threat to public heath the virus poses.
The First Minister said she did not want to “scaremonger”, but pointed to a “definite trend” of cases rising that the public must pay attention to.
READ MORE: Jason Leitch: New Protect Scotland contact tracing app 'no threat to privacy'
The Scottish Government will announce its findings of the latest three-week lockdown review. Ms Sturgeon has given an early indication that the country is not ready to move into stage four of the exit plan – based on the virus no longer being seen as a significant threat to public health.
She said: “From all of the latest statistics it is clear that will not be the case.
Ms Sturgeon further warned that it “may be that we have to put the brakes on some further changes, too” - adding that “we risk, in the weeks ahead, going back to a mounting toll of illness and death” if action to halt coronavirus is to stop.
She warned that young people are currently making up a higher proportion of positive cases in Scotland.
READ MORE: Coronavirus Scotland: Almost 150 cases of coronavirus confirmed in 24 hours
She added: “If transmission takes hold again, even if it starts in the younger, healthier, part of the population, which it appears to be doing, because younger people are interacting more, it won’t necessarily stay in that part of the population.
“It will eventually seep into older and more vulnerable groups. To be blunt, some young people will go on to infect their older friends or relatives.
“It is at that point we could see again more deaths and serious illnesses happen.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel