Scotland looks set to face more lockdown restrictions after Nicola Sturgeon announced she’s been given “very strong” advice from health experts that more needed to be done to control the pandemic.
The first minister said while no “final decisions” had yet been made, she needed to act to control the “sharply rising rate of infection” across the country.
An announcement is due to be made on Wednesday on what further measures will be taken.
“In many ways this is is probably the most difficult decision point we have faced so far,” she said.
Scotland is already under stricter restrictions than England, with household mixing having been banned from September 22.
Sturgeon did not reveal what new restrictions would be imposed, but she did list what she would not do.
Speaking at Tuesday’s press briefing, she said schools would remain open and people would not be told to stay in their homes as they were in March.
“We are not proposing another lockdown at this stage, not even on a temporary basis,” she said.
Professor Neil Ferguson, the Imperial College London expert who advised the UK government to impose the first lockdown, said that restrictions including closing bars and restaurants could be needed.
“If we want to keep schools open we have to reduce contacts in other areas of society by more,” he told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme.
It came as Boris Johnson told the Conservative Party conference there was no alternative to the coronavirus restrictions he has been forced to introduce as he promised to forge a new Britain “in the teeth of this pandemic”.
In his speech, the prime minister promised there would be no social distancing measures in place by this time next year.
Johnson said he had had “more than enough” of coronavirus, which he described as a “plague” and an “alien invader”.
