If you want to travel to Scotland, you might want to reschedule. The country is closed—literally. For the next month, the nation will under a strict and legally enforced COVID lockdown. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said this was being done to curb the spread of this new strain that while not any more lethal, is more infectious. Yet, The Guardian noted that this lockdown comes at a time when hospitalization rates in Scotland have not spiked. Sturgeon added that she’s more concerned about the virus now than she was last March when the country underwent a similar lockdown (via The Guardian):
Mainland Scotland will be placed in a full lockdown from midnight on Monday for the duration of January in an effort to stop the coronavirus pandemic spiralling out of control, Nicola Sturgeon has announced.
The first minister said in an emergency statement to Holyrood all Scotland’s schools would remain closed for the whole of January, shifting to online learning, because of the risks posed by the new Covid variant B117.
The new “stay at home” rules, mirroring the strict controls imposed last March, would also be legally enforced and greatly restrict who was able to travel, the Scottish government’s cabinet agreed earlier on Monday.
While Scotland has not experienced the sharp escalation in the number of Covid patients in hospital seen in parts of England over the last week, the number of positive cases has risen to a new record high every day, hitting 2,464 on Sunday.
People in Scotland ordered to stay at home until the end of January amid a fresh Covid-19 lockdown, starting from midnighthttps://t.co/m2RAEgFYqa
— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) January 4, 2021
Scotland will go into full national lockdown from midnight tonight, Nicola Sturgeon confirms.
— Thomas Colson (@tpgcolson) January 4, 2021
"We have decided to introduce from midnight tonight for the duration of January a legal requirement to stay at home except for essential purposes." Similar to March lockdown.
Nicola Sturgeon: "When you do go out, stay as close to home as possible and stay away from crowded places. And it remains the case that no-one is allowed to travel into or out of Scotland unless it is for an essential purpose."
— Chris Musson (@ChrisMusson) January 4, 2021
Scottish lockdown includes ALL schools closed, except for key workers. Remote learning was already in place for primaries and secondaries until Jan 18, now extended until Feb 1.
— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) January 4, 2021
Stay inside and die. Should that be the new motto for these lockdowns? The data is clear. The household spread is what’s causing the spikes in cases. A restaurant, a bar, or the gym are low-risk areas. It’s the home, especially homes with multigenerational family members. We all thought schools would become mortuaries if they reopened. Wrong. Schools are also not a source of major spread. In this area, the medical experts—the pediatricians—were right from the start. It’s safe to reopen schools. Don’t be shocked if this lockdown does next to nothing to curb the spread. We tried it here. It didn’t work. And with nearly 90 percent of mask compliance, it looks like there will be a shift on masks too. In the United States, California has a mask mandate. It’s the state that’s seeing the biggest spike as we speak. In fact, if California wasn’t spiking, COVID cases in the US would be declining nationally.
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