Update: First Minister confirms Scotland to remain in Covid-19 cornavirus lockdown for at least another three weeks
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First Minister Nicola Sturgeon confirmed Scotland is to remain in lockdown.
She reiterated that message at a press briefing this evening, having already said that would be the case during First Minister's questions.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has confirmed the UK as a whole will continue to observe the lockdown for at least a further three weeks.
Ms Sturgeon said: “Early indications are that the lockdown restrictions have resulted in a slowing down in the rate of community transmission of the virus and while, of course, we cannot be complacent that slow down appears to be reflected in a stabilisation of the numbers being admitted to hospital and to intensive care.
“It's hard to be optimistic when every day we are reporting the significant numbers of people who have died from this illness and, sadly, that is likely to continue for some time yet.
"We do hope that as a result of the slowdown in the rate of transmission we will also see the number of deaths decline too.
“The clear advice I have been given at this stage is that these lockdown measures must be in place for at least three more weeks.
“We are not yet confident that transmission has slowed sufficiently to ease up on them.
"If you were to lift any of these restrictions now, we would risk and immediate and potentially exponential resurgence of the virus and that could result in our NHS being overwhelmed; it could result more cases in our care homes; and it would also mean much more loss of life.
“It could also lead to the reintroduction of even more stringent restrictions in the future, substantially more damage to the economy as a result – in short all of the progress we have achieved together in these last few weeks through high compliance with all the restrictions would be lost."
