MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th January, 2021) The Scottish authorities have decided to introduce a new lockdown on Monday midnight, which is expected to last through January, due to a spike in the coronavirus cases, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said, adding that the new legal requirement would ban anyone from leaving their homes except for essential purposes.
"We are now seeing a steeply rising trend of infections. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that I am more concerned about the situation we face now than I have been at any time since March last year. As a government our clear duty right now is to act quickly and decisively to safeguard health, save lives and protect the NHS [National Health Service]," Sturgeon told the Parliament on Monday.
According to the first minister, the details of the lockdown measures will be presented later. In the spring, UK residents were allowed to go out to grocery stores and walk for an hour a day.
Sturgeon noted that most of the infections were caused by a new strain of coronavirus, which the authorities are planning to contain both with the help of the vaccination campaign and new restrictions.
"The advice of our clinical advisers is very clear that the increased transmissibility of the new variant means that the current level 4 measures may not be sufficient to bring the R number [reproduction number] back below 1. It is essential that we further limit interaction between different households to stem the spread and bring the situation back under control, while we vaccinate more people. In short, we must return for a period to a situation much closer to the lockdown of last March," the minister said.
The government also vowed to provide social support to those in need, including food deliveries to vulnerable residents who are in high-risk groups.
