NICOLA Sturgeon has warned guising could be banned this year – as the Scottish Government will issue official guidance over allowing children to celebrate Halloween without “coming into unnecessary contact with other people”.

The traditional guising is set for the axe with Scots currently banned from mixing inside other people’s homes as coronavirus cases surge across the country.

The First Minister was asked about whether guising will be allowed to take place at her daily coronavirus briefing.

She said: “I can’t tell you how much I hate having to stand here and talk about having to restrict the ability of kids to go out guising – but we are in a global pandemic.

“Hopefully we’ll never have to face this again in another year. This is hopefully a once in a century thing that we will all have to live through.”

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Ms Sturgeon added: “We’ll put out some official guidance – I can’t believe we’re having to issue official guidance on Halloween but that’s the situation we’re in – probably over the weekend.

“It’s not safe right now to do these things as normal. It would not be fair of me or right of me to say otherwise.

“To parents, to children, think of ways in which you can celebrate in a way that is safe and doesn't have children and others coming into unnecessary contact with other people. We’ll put out a little bit of guidance on that over the weekend to help parents, in particular, navigate their way through this.”