First Minister urges residents to stay at home Please have a very careful Christmas
Residents in Stirling have been advised by the First Minister against meeting those in their“christmas bubble” on more than one day during the five day festive easing of restrictions.
Bubbles can be formed between December 23-27, when up to three households will be permitted to gather, with a maximum of eight people. Children under the age of 12 will not be counted in the total of eight.
However, speaking at First Minister’s Questions in Holyrood yesterday (Thursday) Nicola Sturgeon said that, despite the easing of restrictions, she urges people to minimise contact with other households.
As of yesterday, it was estimated that the rate of infection (the R number) is around 1. Ms Sturgeon said the safest way to spend Christmas this year is to stay within your own household and your own home.
She said: “Any interaction you do have with another household should, if possible, be outdoors. However, if you consider it essential to meet indoors with someone from another household - and pragmatically, we recognise that some people might - you should limit both the duration and the numbers as much as possible. The five-day period over Christmas is a limited window – not a period of time that we think it is safe to meet for. My recommendation to anyone who considers it essential to form a bubble is to not meet up with people in it on any more than one day in the Christmas period, and to keep the duration as short as possible.
“People should also limit numbers as far as possible.
“Three households and eight people is a maximum that tries to account for the fact that families come in all shapes and sizes – but the smaller, the better.”
She also urged against travel from high-prevalence to lowprevalence parts of the UK – including travel to or from Scotland and Tier 3 areas of England.
She added: “The five-day window of opportunity over Christmas is a pragmatic recognition that some people may not be willing to leave loved ones alone, and therefore it is an attempt to put some riskreducing boundaries around that.
“But let me reiterate that our clear advice is that the safest way to spend Christmas this year is to stay within our own homes and households and to keep any interaction with other households outdoors.”