Scottish Government First Minister Nicola Sturgeon warns that Covid-19 coronavirus lockdown easing is 'highest risk change' so far
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First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said that “tomorrow marks the biggest step so far in our exit from lockdown” as Scotland records no new confirmed deaths from Covid-19.
Tomorrow sees the reopening of the tourism and hospitality sector, albeit with huge changes to safeguard against the transmission of the virus.
It includes pubs and restaurants returning subject to a battery of new regulations to prevent coronavirus getting a toehold when people meet while places of worship can also re-open for congregational services, communal prayer and contemplation.
Restrictions will also be eased on who can attend funerals, marriage ceremonies and civil partnership registrations – previously it had been largely restricted to immediate family.
On top of that, all holiday accommodation will now be permitted to reopen and as will hairdressers, museums, galleries, cinemas, monuments, libraries – all with physical distancing and other measures like enhanced hygiene.
Significantly too all childcare providers can start taking care of children again which will free many parents to return to work properly.
Ms Sturgeon said: “I can report that an additional three positive cases were confirmed, which takes the total to 18368, a total of 616 patients are currently in hospital with the virus confirmed or suspected – 67 more than yesterday overall.
“As of now and often these things are always subject to change but as of now just two patients are in ICU in the whole Scotland with confirmed Covid-19.
“And I am very pleased to say that during the past 24-hours no deaths were registered for patients confirmed through a test as having Covid-19 so the number of deaths under this measure therefore remains at 2490.
“And it's worth just noting that today is the sixth day in a row in which zero deaths have been registered and it's also the first Monday with no deaths registered since March 10, which as you know is before lockdown started.
“Thanks again to the health and care workers. The entire country is extremely grateful to you for everything you do and today let me be very clear that includes the care home staff who do us the honour of coming to Scotland from overseas to work here.
“That includes the six to eight per cent of care home workers, who come from other countries within the European Union. It is essential that care home workers are included in any scheme for post-Brexit visas.
“The Scottish Government will continue to make strong representations on that point to the UK government.
“Tomorrow sees a further reopening for resumption of many services, in fact tomorrow marks the biggest step so far in our exit from lockdown.
“From tomorrow the tourism sector can reopen, as can venues such as museums, galleries and cinemas, indoor hospitality can start-up again, hairdressing services can resume, face services and the childcare sector will be fully open cnce again.
“We have published guidance for places of worship which provide information on how places of worship can ensure the safe resumption of congregational services.
"The detailed information on issues like physical distancing, cleaning and the maximum group size of 50 which we are currently permitting for services.
“The resumption of communal prayer and worship is something that has been long awaited by people of all faiths so today’s guidance will I hope be useful in enabling such services to take place as safely as possible.
“The second piece of guidance published today is relevant to places of worship as well as to many other venues and gives advice to businesses and organisations about the collection and retention or customer, visitor and staff data.
“It applies to all sectors where there could well be a high level of interaction between people who do not know each other and that could be through close contact between staff and customers like hairdressers.
“Or where relatively large numbers of people are in a relatively confined space for a long period such as restaurants, bars or other settings including places of worship.
“Data collection is very important, it means that customers or staff can be notified if they come into contact with somebody who is subsequently found to have Covid-19 is therefore absolutely crucial to our test and protect system.
“It is one of the measures that we hope will help to build public and staff confidence as more premises reopen.
“To be very blunt with you, the changes that come into force tomorrow are the highest risk changes since we started to come out of locked because many of them involve indoor activity and we know that the risk of the virus spreading indoors, in a pub for example, is significantly higher than outdoors.”
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