SCOTLAND’s national clinical director has warned that pubs and restaurants being exempt from the two-metre rule may have to be halted in order to combat the spread of the more easily transmissible new variant of the virus.

Professor Jason Leitch stressed that no such move is currently being considered, but he warned other measures may need to be looked at in order to stop the new strain of Covid-19 from spreading out of control.

He also suggested that any strengthening “would be back to March rather than November” in terms of the initial lockdown potentially being needed.

The new variant, which has already been discovered in Greater Glasgow and Clyde and Lanarkshire NHS areas is thought to be up to 70 per cent more transmissible than the original version of the disease.

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Speaking at Holyrood’s Covid-19 committee, Consitution Secretary Mike Russell stressed that "nobody is saying we should abandon the levels approach" to suppressing the virus, indicating that different parts of the country could still be subject to different rules.

Professor Leitch told MSPs that the new variant was showing "exponential growth while national lockdown measures were in place "in England during November, suggesting the clampdown “was not sufficient to drive down the R number”.

He added: “It is here, it’s particularly here in Lanarkshire and Greater Glasgow and Clyde - that’s why we have acted as quickly as we could.”

As things stand, all of mainland Scotland is being place into tier 4 lockdown rules on Boxing Day for at least three weeks.

Professor Leitch was asked about other measures that could be introduced to stop the spread of new strain amid consideration from the Scottish Government that the tier 4 restrictions could be strengthened.

He said: “The present position on December 23 is that the present non-pharmaceutical interventions are the right things to do – a cough is still a cough, a sneeze is still a sneeze – the new variant doesn’t make it go further so it’s about staying away from that cough or sneeze or surface.

“Still not getting the virus is the same measures as you’ve been taking so cut down your interactions, stay at home as much as you can and if you do go out, follow those FACTS.”

He added: “If we think, for example, and I’m not suggesting this is what we might do, Sage might say that the place that have been given an exemption to the two-metre rule should now re-think that – that might be one of the things that Sage would eventually say, so the one-metre plus or one metre we have in Scotland.

“That may be something because the one meter is two to 10 times more likely to transmit the old virus so that may be a problem with this new variant.

“That’s not the position we’re in just now. Sage will continue to look at the data as it comes out and we will adjust the public behaviours as time passes if we have to do that.”

Professor Leitch warned “we simply do not know” if the new strain is more transmissible in children, amid speculation that it is – raising fears about the need to prevent young people from mixing in schools.

He added: “I would expect it to be more transmissible in older children.”