Pub scenes left Sturgeon nearing tears
IMAGES of people ignoring social distancing rules made Nicola Sturgeon “want to cry” she said, as coronavirus clusters linked to pubs emerge. The First Minister repeated the call for people to follow rules and think how often they want or need to visit pubs.
As she announced that 13 cases were linked to a bar in Aberdeen, she said that outbreaks like this were what she “feared” when re-opening the hospitality sector.
Sturgeon said: “We have seen a few of these clusters and it is likely we will see more in the weeks ahead. It is exactly what we feared when we opened the hospitality sector.”
Sturgeon said it was “largely young people gathering with no social distancing”.
The First Minister said she saw images on social media over the weekend.
She added: “It made me want to cry looking at them.”
Sturgeon said it was a “race against time” to manage the clusters as she compared the efforts needed to “fighting a forest fire”.
She warned that if re-imposing restrictions became necessary the Scottish Government would act, adding “we will, because we will have no choice”.
Sturgeon said she did want to re-impose restrictions but that she would “not hesitate” if it was needed.
The First Minister said that Scotland could be staying on phase three of lockdown for some time yet.
She said the next review was in under three weeks but that it was likely that there would be no further easing of restrictions.
The impact of re-opening pubs and restaurants was still being assessed and the return to school later this month has to be analysed before any more significant changes are made.
Sturgeon said: “One of the criteria we’ve got to satisfy ourselves of to go into phase four is that the judgement is that this virus no longer presents a significant threat to public health and we’re not there yet right now.
“We’re not anywhere near that right now.
“I said in Parliament last week that we would stay in phase three for now and when it comes to the next review in just under three weeks it’s quite possible that we will stay in phase three then as well.
“This virus is still a threat to public health and until we are in a different position in some way, that is likely to be the case for the foreseeable future.”
The latest figures showed 18 new positive cases in the last 24 hours, which was 0.7% of all tests carried out that day.
There were 265 people in hospital and three people in intensive care, which was unchanged from the previous day.
Sturgeon said there was, yet again, no deaths recorded from coronavirus.