Coronavirus restrictions to be eased from Friday with more adults able to meet socially in outdoor settings and more allowed to attend communal worship from March 26
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Scotland's First Minister has announced further easing of the coronavirus lockdown restrictions in a statement in Holyrood today.
Ms Sturgeon said the first changes related to outdoor social interactions because it was accepted that meeting up was beneficial for our well being and added: "From Friday we intend to relax the law so that up to four adults from up to two households will be able to meet outdoors."
In addition, she pointed out, it was for social and recreational purposes as well as for exercise. She said: "Meeting will be possible in any outdoor space – including private gardens – but please do stick to the new rules."
She said that people were only allowed to go indoors when it was essential such as using a toilet or to access a back garden and they should still stay as close to home as possible.
The other area which is being relaxed relates to places of worship and the attendance limit for communal worship will be raised from 20 to 50 – where there is enough space to accommodate social distancing from Friday March 26.
Ms Sturgeon said: "I know that the restrictions on communal worship have been really difficult for many people despite the quite exceptional efforts made by faith groups to reach out to their communities.
"This change again is relatively minor but it is proportionate and we believe that it can be achieved relatively safely and hopefully enable more people to draw strength, comfort and inspiration from acts of collective worship."
She said things were now looking more optimistic and added: "All of us, I think, can see that things are getting better just now.
"In recent weeks we have seen a significant fall in new cases, deaths and hospital admissions are thankfully now falling and the vaccination programme is not just progressing well it is progressing beyond our initial expectations."
According to the latest statistics there were 19 deaths registered in the last 24 hour period bringing the total number of deaths in Scotland to 7,441.
In addition there were 466 positive coronavirus tests reported yesterday – 3.3 per cent of all tests carried out – which brought the total number of cases to 206,465.
Currently there are 614 people in hospital with 50 people receiving intensive care.
