‘Cautious approach could see return to normality sooner’

SCOTLAND’S First Minister has said continuing the cautious approach to coronavirus could see a return to normality sooner than expected.

At the daily briefing on Covid-19, Nicola Sturgeon said that, despite falling numbers of cases and deaths in hospital and ICU admissions reported every day, caution should be exercised to ensure that lockdown measures do not have to be reimposed.

On Thursday, the First Minister is expected to announce a move to the second phase of the route map out of lockdown.

She said: “The evidence suggests that the careful approach we have adopted so far is working.

“The lesson I take from that i s that we should stick with that plan, not discard it.

“Because, and this of course i s t he much harder bit, while transmission of the virus is much reduced the virus has not gone away yet.

“We still have a significant number of infected people and we are still seeing new cases every day.

“The risk remains that if we move too quickly, and if we come into contact with too many people, cases of the virus could start to multiply again very quickly and we need to avoid that happening.”

A total of 2,448 patients have died i n Scotland after testing positive for coronavirus, up by one from 2,447 on Saturday, the Scottish Government has announced.

New statistics show that 15,755 people have tested positive for the virus north of the border, up by 25 from 15,730 the previous day.

In Tayside, 1,685 people have tested positive.