New strategy to be set out within days
FIRST Minister Nicola Sturgeon will reveal in the nex t few days what lockdown restrictions will be in place once pub closures lift. She said that the new strategy, which will include tiers or levels of interventions, similar to what has been put in place in England, will be published later this week.
Sturgeon added that it will not be a rigid system where a certain number of cases triggers a certain response, but there will instead be a degree of judgement applied.
The current restrictions closing hospitality businesses, including pubs and licensed restaurants in Glasgow, are due to come to an end on Sunday.
Sturgeon said they will be replaced by a new system and she will announce what parts of the country will be in which category.
The Greater Glasgow area, and the rest of the central belt, continues to have the highest number of cases.
The latest update showed there were 993 new positive cases reported. Of those, 362 were in Greater Glasgow and Clyde, 294 in Lanarkshire, 122 in Lothian and 57 in Ayrshire and Arran.
There are 754 people in hospital confirmed to have the virus, up by 40 in 24 hours.
There were 61 people in intensive care, down two.
The First Minister is to discuss the new strategy framework with opposition party leaders at Holyrood.
Sturgeon said: “One of the things the framework will set out are the different tiers or levels of intervention and restrictions which may be applied in future, either locally or nationally across Scotland, depending on how the virus is spreading.
“We will also indicate, based on the latest advice from the national incident management team and our clinical advisers, what level should apply to different parts of the country or potentially all of the country once the current temporary restrictions on hospitality come to an end on October 26.
“The framework will also summarise our work to improve the effectiveness of existing measures to curb Covid, for example, how we will work to improve compliance with Facts advice and other guidelines, the review of our testing strategy and how we will continue to support Test and Protect.”
She said the current national rules on no visiting between households will be in place once the hospitality measures are ended.
She added: “It is not realistic to expect a return to normality.
“Household restrictions will continue and it might be we need to have other restrictions above that.”
She said interventions will depend on the nature of why there is a high level of cases in different areas.
A factory outbreak will be treated differently to community transmission.