Glasgow among areas placed into Scotland’s toughest level 4 coronavirus restrictions

Nicola Sturgeon says three-week controls should clear path to eased restrictions across Scotland for Christmas

Nicola Sturgeon has announced that 11 council areas, including Glasgow,  are to be placed in the toughest level 4 of Scotland’s coronavirus restrictions from 6pm on Friday.

For a three-week period until 11 December, people in level 4 areas are advised to remain at home “as much as possible”, while non-essential shops, leisure venues, and pubs and restaurants will close, with the exception of takeaways.

From Friday, people living in level 3 and 4 areas will be banned by law from travelling outside their council area, except for a few essential reasons, Ms Sturgeon told the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood.

Areas going into level 4 for a “short and sharp” time-limited period are Glasgow, Renfrewshire, East Renfrewshire, East Dunbartonshire, West Dunbartonshire, North Lanarkshire, South Lanarkshire, East Ayrshire, South Ayrshire, Stirling and West Lothian.

The first minister said the new restrictions were “necessary to ensure that the NHS can cope with the range of pressures it will face over the winter” and to get Covid-19 cases down before the health service is faced with the most intense pressures from seasonal illnesses.

And she said: “These decisions will give us the best possible chance, albeit in a limited and careful way of being able to ease restrictions in all parts of Scotland for Christmas.

“That is something, all of us want to look forward to.

“But we also know it will increase the risks of transmission. So we must get infection rates to a lower baseline now.

“These decisions will help us limit the impact of the virus, including in loss of life, as we steer a path through the next few months, towards the brighter times that are now within sight, as vaccines and better treatments become available.”

Ms Sturgeon said the announcement came as Scotland was about to pass the “sombre and deeply distressing” milestone of 5,000 deaths from coronavirus since the pandemic began in the spring.

She told MSPs that a number of local authorities areas in central Scotland “case numbers and test positivity significantly above the national average”, and while the situation has stabilised in some of them, it has done so at a “stubbornly high level”.

In all of the new level 4 areas there were “grounds for continued and significant concern”, with 277 cases per 100,000 in Glasgow, compared to a national average of 114.

“The infection rate in all of these areas remains stubbornly and worryingly high,” said Ms Sturgeon.

"At these levels we simply do not have the assurance we need the hospital and ICU services will be able to cope as we go deeper into the winter.

“Pressure on hospitals in these areas and on those who work in them is already severe and with the additional pressure that the coming weeks may bring it could easily become intolerable.”

Under the level 4 restrictions, people may not visit each others’ homes, but may meet outdoors with up to six people from two households.

But Scottish government advice is to stay at or close to home “as much as possible”.

Those who can work from home should do so. Only essential indoor retail premises will remain open, close contact services like hairdressers and beauty salons, visitor attractions, leisure and entertainment settings and indoor gyms will also close.