Health Secretary: End of crisis in sight

THE end of the coronavirus pandemic may now be in sight, Scotland’s health secretary has said.

Jeane Freeman told Scots the success of the Covid vaccination programme and months of gruelling lockdown restrictions meant the battle against Covid was being won.

The number of Covid patients in Scottish hospitals continues to drop sharply, with 824 in wards as of yesterday – down from more than 1000 last week.

Freeman, standing in for Nicola Sturgeon at yesterday’s media briefing, said: “The success of our vaccine programme means that after 12 long months, an end to the pandemic may be in sight. For the moment, we still need to be careful. And we still need to stick to the current rules.”

THE fact that new variants of coronavirus are still being imported to the UK is proof Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s quarantine plan is not working.

All viruses mutate – but that doesn’t mean they should be able to freely spread around the world.

The pandemic has gone on long enough and governments now have the ability to react quickly to stop variants in their tracks.

The latest is linked to Brazil and has now been found in Scotland.

Crucially, there is no evidence yet that it has been transmitted in the community.

The new variant was detected among three people who returned to Aberdeen from Brazil, via Paris and London.

All of them self-isolated and efforts are now underway to trace anyone they came into contact with in the UK in recent days.

To stop new variants being let in through the back door, the SNP is urging Westminster to align its hotel quarantine policy with Scottish Government procedurees and quarantine people at their first point of arrival in the UK.

The party wants Johnson to make the decision immediately, to ensure no other variants enter the country before they are detected in the UK through testing. It’s the right call. We have made significant progress in Scotland in suppressing the virus and rolling out the vaccine.

We cannot have that hard work undone by new variants being allowed to enter through the back door.

Now is the time to be tough on quarantine rules to ensure we can first ease rules at home.