Brighter days lie ahead for us all

Over the last few weeks, the Scottish Government has taken some important steps in setting out the way ahead to relax coronavirus restrictions and begin to experience something closer to normal life.

In late February, our communities were enlivened by the sound and chatter of young children going back to early learning and primary school. It was such a joy to hear those happy sounds and to see the happiness for the children of being able to interact with their friends once again.

At the other end of the age spectrum, it was such a relief to see a resumption of visiting for relatives in our care homes after such a long period of restrictions.

This coming Monday we will see a greater return to schooling for more pupils and for college and university students. Later this week, we will see the relaxation of the socialising rules with people able to meet up with four adults from two households out of doors and resumption of non-contact sports for 12-17 year olds.

Later in March we will see the reopening of places of worship and hopefully we will be able to see the removal of the

Stay at Home requirements. The hope is to be able to deliver all of that by the end of April.

Thereafter, our aim would be the gradual relaxation of other restrictions to enable further economic and social activity to take place.

The pace of all of these steps is dependent on our success as a community at suppressing the prevalence of the virus and the roll out of the vaccination programme.

On each of these fronts there is good news.

The number of positive cases in Scotland is falling and now sits just above 60 cases per 100,000. At its peak in January it sat at over 300.

Over the last couple of weeks the positivity rate has been consistently under five per cent which is the World Health Organisation definition of a pandemic under control.

The vaccination programme is going well and nearly 1.8 million adults in Scotland have received their first dose, representing nearly 40 per cent of the adult population. The programme is large and well-organised with a capacity to deliver 400,000 jabs each week. The only limiting factors are the supply of the vaccine and the need to ensure we run a smooth second dose programme as well.

So there is room for a greater level of optimism about where we find ourselves and what lies ahead. That has only been possible because of the enormous sacrifices that have been made by members of the public in complying with the restrictions and following the Stay at Home requirement.

That has placed great strain on everyone and I am profoundly grateful for all that has been contributed.

There remains the possibility that we can face bumps in the road. The news of examples of the Brazil variant of the virus being in Scotland is a cause for concern and we need to be prepared to take necessary measures - such as the quarantine arrangements

- to keep the pandemic under control.

But there is now light at the end of the tunnel and we can be hopeful that better days lie ahead.