News
4th Feb 2021Covid in Scotland Phased Return to School
COVID IN SCOTLAND: LOCKDOWN REMAINS WITH A PHASED RETURN TO
SCHOOL:
ADVICE FOR PARENTS
Lockdown Update
1.
After
giving an update on vaccinations, the First Minister confirmed that lockdown
would be extended.
2.
She
said that the lockdown restrictions must stay in place until at least the end
of February.
3.
However,
if Scotland's progress continues then the First Minister is optimistic that, as
more and more people get vaccinated, and with the protection of some of
additional measures, Scotland, may be able to begin looking towards a careful
and gradual easing around the start of March.
4.
Nicola
Sturgeon will give an update on that in two weeks' time.
5.
Nicola
Surgeon says although progress is being made on controlling the virus
restrictions will remain for at least the rest of the month.
6.
Pupils
will begin a phased return to school from 22nd February with the
youngest going back to the classroom first.
7.
Senior
pupils who have practical assignments to complete will be allowed to return
on a part-time basis, with no more than 8% of the school roll attending at
any one time
8.
A managed quarantine requirement is to be introduced for anyone arriving
directly into Scotland, regardless of which country they have come from.
9.
Ms
Sturgeon says it is reasonable to ask questions about Scotland's vaccination
programme as compared to other parts of the UK.
10.
However,
she points out that "we believe we are achieving a higher uptake of the jab
than elsewhere"
11.
National
clinical director Jason Leith says Scotland needs to speed up its vaccination
programme.
Travel Restrictions
12.
After announcing a lockdown extension, Nicola
Sturgeon commented on the South African variant, and stated that five cases
have been identified.
13.
However, "there is no evidence of community transmission", she said.
14.
With
intentions of stopping any variants from spreading, the First Minister set out
further travel restrictions after the UK government introduced quarantine
hotels. The date of the implementation has not yet been determined.
15.
She said "we now know, for example, that by early July last year, we had almost
eliminated Covid in Scotland but then allowed it to be re-seeded from, in the
main, overseas travel."
16.
Scotland
must guard against that happening again.
17.
It is
to that end that the four UK nations have already agreed that travellers coming
into the UK from countries with a travel ban in place will be required to
quarantine in hotels. Start date not yet agreed.
18.
This
is a necessary measure but in the Scottish Governments view, it does not go
far enough. Firstly, there should be
very few people coming from countries with a ban in place anyway.
19.
Second,
this approach leaves open the possibility that people will travel into the UK
from those countries via third countries.
20.
And thirdly,
an approach to managed quarantine that only incudes countries where new
variants have already been identified is too reactive because often by the
time a new variant has been identified through genomic sequencing it will
already have spread across bords.
21.
The
First Minister therefore confirms we intend to introduce a managed quarantine
requirement for anyone who arrives directly into Scotland, regardless of which
country they have come from.
22.
Obviously,
we cannot stop travellers from arriving into other parts of the UK and then
perhaps travelling into Scotland by train for example but we hope that the
other 3 Nations of the UK will follow suit in order to reduce the pandemic.
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