Nicola Sturgeon admitted that a decision made to leave East Renfrewshire in Level 2 despite rising cases may look inconsistent as she announced Glasgow would remain in Level 3 for at least another week and moved Moray to Level 2 from midnight tonight.
The First Minister referred to the Indian variant as Aprilo2, and said that even if it looked like there were “Apparent inconsistencies” they were “trying to be as proportionate as possible.” The decision was based on “nuanced information and intelligence on what was happening”. She said, “While the cases rates may look similar the actual number of new cases in East Renfrewshire was 17 new cases compared to 166 in Glasgow.”
She also said that in East Renfrewshire the transmission was occurring in households while in Glasgow it was more widespread.
The total number of positive cases stand at 414 – 212 were in Greater Glasgow and Clyde, 62 in Lanarkshire and 48 in Lothian. There are 81 people in hospital, and 4 in intensive care.
She admitted that although she was “reasonably confident” due to the impact of the vaccination that case numbers would not translate in the same way into ICU and death numbers, as in the past she said, “we don’t know that yet” and that they needed more time.
The First Minister has also announced travel restrictions for anyone travelling to Bedford, Bolton and Blackburn due to concern over the level of transmission of April02 there. She said, “If you are planning to visit one of these areas please consider whether you need to make these visits.”
