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COVID-19: Scotland’s COVID restrictions tightened – here are the six new rules

Written by on 13/01/2021

Nicola Sturgeon has tightened COVID restrictions in Scotland, laying out six changes which will come into effect on Saturday.

Subject to approval by the Scottish parliament, the rules are:

• Click-and-collect services limited to essential shopping such as clothing, baby equipment and books

• Customers no longer allowed to collect takeaways from inside restaurants – food must be handed over through a hatch or doorway

• Now against the law to drink alcohol outside in public in all Level 4 areas

• Statutory guidance on working from home – anyone who worked from home during first lockdown should do so again

• Working within homes now limited to the essential upkeep, maintenance or functioning of the home, by law

• Scots may only leave home for essential purposes – and may not stay out for other purposes afterwards

It comes as new figures showed 7,074 people have died in Scotland with confirmed or suspected coronavirus since the pandemic began.

The Scottish first minister said: “Don’t think in terms of the maximum interactions you can have without breaking the rules.

“Think instead about how you minimise your interactions to the bare essentials to remove as many opportunities as possible for the virus to spread.

“In everything you do, assume that the virus is there with you – that either you have it or any person you are in contact with has it – and act in a way that prevents it passing between you.

“All of this means staying at home except for genuinely essential purposes – including working from home whenever possible.

“Except for essential purposes, do not have people from other households in your house and do not go into theirs.”

While the list of essential reasons for leaving home will not change, Ms Sturgeon said: “It does mean that if the police challenge you for being out of the house doing something that is not essential, it will not be a defence to say you initially left the house to do something that was essential.”

Between 4 and 10 January, 384 deaths were registered which mentioned COVID-19 on the death certificate, up 197 on the previous week.

These figures differ from the lab-confirmed coronavirus deaths announced daily by the Scottish government because the National Records of Scotland figures include suspected or probable cases of coronavirus.

Ms Sturgeon said there are signs that the lockdown might be having an effect but that there was “no room for complacency”.

Following the tightening of the click-and-collect services, Tracy Black, the director of CBI Scotland, said such services were “a lifeline to many businesses, particularly smaller firms” and that the new restrictions could cause some businesses to collapse.

“It’s really important that the Scottish government sets out compelling evidence that these services are a source of transmission and provides additional, urgent support to compensate for what would be a further loss of revenue in increasingly challenging times,” she said.

Scotland went into lockdown on 5 January with people only allowed to leave their homes for essential purposes.

All schools have moved to remote learning for the whole of January, except in the case of vulnerable children and those of key workers.

Sky’s political correspondent Kate McCann said there are now “big questions about what might happen next in England”.

“What we clearly are seeing is that Nicola Sturgeon feels that now is the right time to introduce some extra measures,” she said.

“It’s interesting that they are the very same things that have been discussed by the media in England this week, that they are things that are being talked about behind the scenes in Westminster, like the potential for changing the rules on click-and-collect, like stopping people from going inside to get a takeaway.”

(c) Sky News 2021: COVID-19: Scotland’s COVID restrictions tightened – here are the six new rules