Restrictions on outdoor events to be lifted in Scotland on Monday

Nicola Sturgeon has announced that Scotland’s restrictions on outdoor events are to be lifted on Monday.

The First Minister has also said that all restrictions including the closure of nightclubs could all be lifted from January 24.

The restrictions that will soon change were put in place on Boxing Day and meant that nightclubs must close, and outdoor events to be restricted to a 500 people capacity.

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As reported by The Sunday Times, Scotland’s National Clinical Director, Jason Leitch claimed that the restrictions on sporting events and nightclubs were “quite minor” and that closing nightclubs and cancelling football fixtures has made little difference to Scotland’s coronavirus case numbers

However, the BBC have published that Jason Leitch said measures such as the closure of nightclubs are making a difference.

Leitch told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme that the restrictions are “protecting people” and added: "Should we still be protecting the public from these case rates if they are just going to go anyway?

"I think yes is the answer to that. I think the protections reduce the size of the wave and they also potentially elongate the wave to allow you to get more people vaccinated and spread the hospitalisations and intensive care cases out over a longer period.

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"That's got to be good. Now that is not always good if you own a pub or a nursery and people are having to self-isolate, so it's a real balance in there between the number of cases, the numbers off work but I still think it is the right thing to do to try and reduce that case rate."

The latest Scottish government report has shown that the daily cases in Scotland (2,824 per one million population in the week to 6 January) was higher than in England (2,615 per one million) which has fewer COVID restrictions.

Becky Buckle is Mixmag's Digital Intern, follow her on Twitter