Matt Hancock hopes for a ‘great British summer’ post-lockdown

Restrictions are active across mainland Scotland due to the temporary lockdown, and people in Scotland have once again been told to stay at home. People can only leave their homes for reasons which are deemed an “essential purpose”, such as buying essential shopping or for medical and healthcare reasons. Some Scottish islands are currently under Level 3 restrictions.

Announcing the lockdown earlier this month, Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said: “In the last few weeks, there have been two significant game changers in our fight against this virus.

“One, the approval of vaccines, is hugely positive and offers us the way out of this pandemic.

“But the other – the new faster spreading variant of the virus – is a massive blow.”

Scotland has spent many months in lockdown over the course of the last year, and many are hopeful vaccinations against Covid-19 could help to ease the nation out of lockdown.

We will use your email address only for sending you newsletters. Please see our Privacy Notice for details of your data protection rights.

More than 250,000 people in Scotland have already received their first Covid vaccines to date.

Ms Sturgeon said today (Monday, January 18) that she was “hopeful” all adults in Scotland will have received their first vaccine dose by September 2021.

When asked about the September target, Ms Sturgeon said: “We think if all the supplies we are expecting come through then I would be hopeful that we will be in the position of doing the whole adult population in that kind of timeline.

“But the caveat here is always going to be supply dependent.”

When will lockdown end in Scotland?

The Scottish Government set out it would review restrictions in mid-January when the lockdown was first introduced.

Ms Sturgeon said the Scottish Cabinet is due to review the current lockdown restrictions on Tuesday this week.

Ms Sturgeon is then expected to update Holyrood on any decisions made later in the day.

DON’T MISS: 
Boris warned Tory revolt to grow if plan to end lockdown not unveiled [INSIGHT]
Rishi Sunak warned one-off £500 UC payment is ‘worst of both worlds’ [ANALYSIS]
ITV GMB row erupts as Lord Sumption threatens to cut off debate [VIDEO]

The First Minister has said it is not yet clear whether lockdown can be lifted in Scotland yet.

Ms Sturgeon also said it isn’t clear whether schools will be able to reopen soon.

The First Minister said: “We will look at the latest data and come to a view on where we are and whether we need to extend the lockdown restrictions to further suppress the virus.”

Currently, schools are closed to the majority of pupils in Scotland until February 1.

On January 18, a further 1,429 new cases of Covid-19 were reported in Scotland.

Ms Sturgeon said the numbers are starting to show “some positive signs”, but the rate of transmission is still high.

Ms Sturgeon added: “We are seeing some positive signs from the numbers that lockdown is starting to stabilise things and hopefully starting to tip them into decline but transmission is still higher than we would want it to be.

“I’m not going to raise expectations about schools being back on February 1 but nor am I going to stand here and make assumptions about a decision we’re not going to take until tomorrow.”

Source: Read Full Article