HIBERNATION NATION Scotland acts with UK to impose 3-week shutdown
Scottish death toll rises to 14 – with 499 sufferers Police shut rogue bars that refused to close doors
SCOTLAND was last night put on a full coronavirus lockdown as business bosses were told to go into ‘hibernation’.
Nicola Sturgeon announced that Scots will be forced to stay inside their homes for the next three weeks – unless they are carrying out essential activities.
The First Minister said this included shopping for basic necessities such as food and medicine, going to work, getting exercise and caring for vulnerable people.
Gatherings of more than two people in public have also been banned – except where those people are from the same household.
Miss Sturgeon spoke just minutes after Boris Johnson announced the UK-wide lockdown – the toughest restrictions imposed on residents in peacetime. All retailers have been told to close unless they are selling food and medicine, along with all leisure facilities and places of worship.
The First Minister said all weddings would be cancelled, but said funerals could still take place – with only close family in attendance.
The unprecedented intervention came as the number of deaths in Scotland rose by four to 14, with 23 Scots now being treated in intensive care. The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases north of the Border is now 499.
Miss Sturgeon said the new coronavirus restrictions ‘amount to lockdown’. She added: ‘I am not going to sugar coat it in any way, coronavirus is the biggest challenge of our lifetime.’
She said the decision to go into lockdown were ‘not done lightly’. She added: ‘Stay at home.’
Like the Prime Minister, Miss Sturgeon set out a series of restrictions which will be enforced by the police. Those flouting rules will be fined.
This means Scots will only be allowed to leave their house once a day to buy necessities, and for an hour of exercise each day. However, this must be done alone or in a small group of people from one household.
Key workers will also be allowed to leave to go to work, and people caring for other vulnerable people can also leave to be with them.
Miss Sturgeon said funerals would now be ‘restricted to immediate family only’ as the First Minister echoed Boris Johnson’s instructions.
She said she wanted people to think of the new measures not as ‘guidance or advice’ but as rules.
‘I fully expect the vast majority of people to do the right thing,’ she said, but added that later this week emergency powers will allow the measures to be enforced. Ahead of the powers being introduced, police will give ‘strong advice’ to those in breach of the measures, she said, and they will soon follow that up with enforcement, likely to be fines.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Catherine Calderwood said enforcement would only be necessary if people do not take the restrictions seriously. She said the more people comply, the less impact there will be on the NHS and the more lives can be saved.
Dr Calderwood said: ‘I stress again, this is not a rehearsal.
This is real life. And lives will be lost unless everyone changes what they’re doing.’
Chief Constable Iain Livingstone revealed he had been forced to use emergency closure orders on a ‘small number of licensed premises’ which had failed to comply with requests to close down.
Mr Livingstone said: ‘The response to the coronavirus has escalated significantly in recent days and circumstances continue to develop at a rapid pace. Yesterday, officers served emergency closure orders on the small number of licensed premises failing to comply with a Government request to close on the grounds of the threat posed to public safety.
‘We are carefully monitoring the progress of emergency legislation relating to Covid19 and will continue to work with the Government about what is being asked of the public and the enforcement we will take where necessary.’
Meanwhile, the Scottish Government has called for the chancellor to offer more help to self-employed workers impacted by coronavirus.
In a letter to Chancellor Rishi Sunak, Economy Secretary Fiona Hyslop and Finance Secretary Kate Forbes demanded the jobs retention scheme be expanded to the self-employed.
The UK Government has removed the Universal Credit minimum income floor to allow those who are self employed to more readily access the state benefit.
However, the Scottish Government says this ‘does not go far enough’ and has also urged the chancellor to ‘change the rules so that more people can access Statutory Sick Pay’.
‘Do the right thing’ ‘This is not a rehearsal’