‘Cautious’ road map planned to ease lockdown

The Scottish Government is to adopt a very cautious approach when it lays out a road map to easing lockdown restrictions next week, as the Scottish Conservatives say they want to see “clarity and hope”.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will unveil the new road map to parliament next Tuesday and will place an emphasis on datadriven decisions rather than focusing on specific calendar dates for the reopening of society.

The country has been placed under tough lockdown conditions since Boxing Day last year and although encouraging progress has been made on the first round of vaccinations, coronavirus infection numbers have been falling slowly rather than plummeting, which is shaping government strategy.

It is understood Ms Sturgeon will want to continue opening up the country’s schools where it is safe to do so; then look next to ease restrictions on care home visits, religious worship and perhaps some very limited relaxing of the rules that currently prevent non-essential retailers from opening.

Looking ahead, the Scottish Government will continue to rely upon test and protect schemes, vaccinations and compliance with public health rules as the country moves back towards a system of tiered restrictions based on geography, and local virus rates.

However, since the tier system failed to prevent a worsening progression of the pandemic during autumn, it is likely that any new tier system will be noticeably stricter.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Conservatives say Scots deserve “clarity and hope in the months ahead”, after “almost a full year of sacrifices and restrictions”.

The impact of the pandemic on Fife Council’s finances has been put at £66 million as a clearer picture emerges of how the crisis has affected the local authority.

Finance bosses told members of the policy and co-ordination committee on Thursday that the coronavirus bill had been reduced from the most recent estimate of £73m and a peak of £78m forecast late in 2020.

Councillors were told accountants remain confident they can avoid dipping into a £10m financial reserve, despite still facing a £3.7m shortfall in agreed funding to cover Covidrelated expenses.

Earlier this week Scottish Government Finance Minister Kate Forbes announced she was increasing the government’s lost income fund for local authorities from £90m to £200m as part of the Scottish budget for 2021-22.

Fife will receive a share to cover some of the additional costs for health and social care, education, financial hardship and other pandemic related costs.

Some of the biggest deficits are in building services, where £18.7m of income has been delayed due to lockdown.

Another £3.5m of lost income has been racked up at Fife leisure and culture centres and upwards of £2m in parking fees has been lost.

If financial predictions are realised, the council could yet be left with more than £18m of uncommitted funding because of what Eileen Rowland, director of finance and corporate services, termed “one-off ” financial boosts from the Scottish Government.

She said: “The Scottish Government announced this week an additional £275m to cover Covid-19 pressures for the loss of income because of the pandemic.

“There will be an additional £40m for educational recovery to include safety measures in schools, also £20m for financial insecurities on top of the £20m already agreed and £17.2m for spring hardship payments in which we anticipate to make £100 payments to children who receive free school meals.

“We are projecting an overspend in health and social care but because of the extra funding coming to us we expect this to be removed.”

Committee convener and council co-leader David Alexander praised the work of the financial team in “the most unprecedented and difficult of situations”.

He said: “There’s money moving around like Las Vegas at the moment but it’s all going the one way – we’re not losing and that is welcome for Fife.”

Scotland’s rate of coronavirus infection is estimated to be the lowest in the UK, according to the latest figures.

New estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) indicate around one in 180 people in private households in Scotland had Covid-19 between February 6 and 12.

This is a drop from one in 150 between January 31 and February 6.

ONS figures indicate around one in 115 people in private households in England had Covid-19 between February 6 and 12, with the rate in Wales at around one in 125 and in Northern Ireland at around one in 105.

Deputy First Minister John Swinney said the latest figures are a “further indication that lockdown restrictions are having the desired effect”.

Speaking at the Scottish

Government’s coronavirus briefing yesterday, he also said Scotland has recorded 31 deaths from coronavirus and 885 positive tests in the past 24 hours.

This brings the death toll under this measure – of people who first tested positive for the virus within the previous 28 days – to 6,916.

The daily test positivity rate is 4.4%, down from 3.8% the previous day, and 195,839 people have now tested positive in Scotland since the start of the pandemic.

There are 1,222 people in hospital confirmed to have the virus, down 39 in 24 hours, and 98 patients are in intensive care, up three.

Mr Swinney also said that by 8.30am yesterday, 1,386,152 Scots had received their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine – an increase of 31,186 from the previous day.

He also addressed the return of nursery children and youngsters in P1 to P3 to schools on Monday, as well as a limited number of senior students at secondary who need to do practical work for their qualifications.

Mr Swinney, also the education secretary, said: “This partial return of education is an important milestone.”

He said at-home, lateral flow testing for Covid-19 will be made available twice a week for staff and students at schools – with around 2,500 schools now having received testing kits and the remainder expected either yesterday or by early next week.

Mr Swinney stressed testing is voluntary but it is “a very important addition to the other safety mitigations that are already in place”.

He also said further guidance on vaccine priority groups is expected within the next week, once the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has given ministers more guidance.

The JCVI has so far set out the top nine priority groups for inoculation, with care home residents and their carers being highest on the list.

Recent data on declining deaths in care homes came as an “enormous relief ”, he said, as it points to the effectiveness of the vaccine programme.

Dr Gregor Smith, Scotland’s chief medical officer, said the JCVI had met twice this week and would send its advice to ministers around the UK in the “very near future”.

Reports have said that the head of the JCVI believes age should be the dominant factor in the next phase of the vaccine rollout.

Fife Council co-leader David Alexander praised the work of the financial team.

COVID BRIEFING: Education Secretary John Swinney said 1,386,152 Scots had received their first dose of the vaccine.