Scotland is to impose a nationwide coronavirus lockdown for the rest of January because of a surge in cases, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced on Monday.
“We have decided to introduce from midnight (0000 GMT Tuesday), for the duration of January, a legal requirement to stay at home, except for essential purposes,”
she told the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.
“This is similar to the lockdown of March last year.”
Sturgeon, the leader of the pro-independence Scottish National Party, said a new faster-spreading variant of coronavirus, first identified in the UK in December had been a “massive blow” in the battle against the virus.
She said the evidence was “compelling” that “the new variant already accounts for almost half of all new cases in Scotland”.
“We are now seeing a steeply rising trend of infections and 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,”
she added.
