Fist Minister outlines background to Aberdeen lockdown
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
Speaking at her daily breifing at luchtime today, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has explained the full details of the situation in Aberdeen that has led to the reinstatement of lockdown conditons.
She said: "I want to start immediately today with a very important update on the cluster of cases that we have been dealing with in Aberdeen in recent days.
"And I would ask everyone in Aberdeen, and indeed Aberdeenshire, to take particular note of what I am about to report.
"My comments will undoubtedly spark a lot of questions and so further detail will be provided later today, on the Scottish Government website, but I want to give the headline information direct to you now.
"Firstly, let me set the context.
"When the Aberdeen cluster was initially reported by NHS Grampian - at the end of last week – there were four identified cases as part of it.
"Over the past few days, a Test and Protect team has been tracing the contacts of those individuals.
"They, and the local incident management team, are doing an exceptionally good job and they have my deep appreciation for that.
"However, I can confirm that – as of now – a total of 54 cases have been confirmed as associated with that cluster – a total of 191 close contacts have already been traced, although we expect that number to rise over the course of today.
"And in the past 24 hours, across the whole of Scotland, a total of 64 new cases have been reported.
"A full health board breakdown will be available later as usual and I’ll come back to say more about the national figures shortly.
"But my provisional information is that 36 of these 64 new cases are in Grampian.
"Now, it is not yet clear how many are connected to the outbreak in Aberdeen and indeed let me be clear that some of these may already be counted in that most recent figure for the cluster that I have just given you.
"But this high number of cases certainly heightens, considerably heightens our concern that we are dealing with a significant outbreak in Aberdeen that may involve some community transmission.
She continued:"Now, the main link identified in this cluster, so far, has been the Hawthorn Bar in Aberdeen city centre.
"However, more detailed analysis by NHS Grampian and Test and Protect has shown that this one venue does not account for all the positive cases.
"Indeed in total now, more than 20 other licenced premises are part of the contact tracing picture.
"So when we take all of this information together, we have been led to the conclusion that we must now take further immediate steps on a highly precautionary basis, to prevent further spread and to give the Test and Protect teams the best possible chance of successfully breaking these chains of transmission.
"Earlier this morning I chaired a meeting of SGORR – which is, as you know, the Scottish Government’s resilience committee – because I wanted to consider the latest data that we had overnight and also what our response to that should be.
"NHS Grampian, Police Scotland and the leaders and Chief Executive of Aberdeen City Council played a full part in that meeting and I’m very grateful to them for their constructive and very helpful contributions.
"And I want to assure you that the decisions we agreed this morning and that I am about to confirm to you now are not being taken lightly. But we are at a stage of this pandemic where extreme caution is necessary and, also in my view, sensible.
"I’m also mindful of the need to act quickly and decisively, if we are to succeed, in our aim of keep transmission as close to elimination levels as possible, and also to protect our priority - and it is our priority, you’ve heard me say that before - of getting young people back to school.
"Indeed, I was struck this morning by a comment from the Children's Commissioner for England.
"She said and I’m quoting: ‘if the choice has to be made in a local area about whether to keep pubs or schools open, then schools must always take priority’.
"I agree with that and so did the leaders of Aberdeen City Council.
"And that is one of the very important reasons that we are taking firm action now.
"So I can confirm that it was agreed at SGoRR this morning, albeit, as I’m sure you understand, extremely reluctantly, to re-impose some restrictions on the Aberdeen City Area and I want to set out what those restrictions are.
"Though let me remind you, because I know, particularly for people living in Aberdeen, that there will be lots of questions, that we will make more detail available over the course of today, to give as much clarity to people, as possible.
She stressed: "Firstly – our travel guidance to people in Aberdeen, from today, is that you should no longer travel more than five miles for leisure or recreational purposes.
"You may continue to travel for work or education, but we advise against other travel.
"We are also advising people who are not in Aberdeen, not to travel to Aberdeen.
"If you are already in Aberdeen, visiting family or on holiday, you can stay, but please follow all of the guidance while you are there and take extra care when you return home.
"Secondly, from today people in Aberdeen should not go into each other’s houses.
"Extended household groups can continue – but remember, those are situations which should only involve one other adult, who is living on their own.
"And finally we will be introducing regulations, we will publish these later today, requiring all indoor and outdoor hospitality in the city to close by 5pm today.
"That includes all bars, restaurants, cafes and pubs.
"Hotel restaurants can remain open – but to provide food for residents only and takeaway services can continue, but all other pubs and restaurants and cafes must close.
"This restriction on hospitality will be backed by regulation, so if necessary, it will be enforced, but I would expect, given the responsible way they have behaved in recent days, that owners of these businesses in Aberdeen will act voluntarily and continue to be responsible and I want to thank businesses in the hospitality trade for their co-operation so far.
"These regulations and the associated guidance and advice will be reviewed in seven days’ time – by which time I hope that we will be in a better position to judge the scale and the trajectory of this outbreak.
"And at that point, if these restrictions can be removed, we will remove them, in their entirety or in part.
"But I should also give notice that if it is considered necessary, we may extend them beyond the initial seven day period.
"Finally, if you are contacted by Test and Protect in Aberdeen, please comply with their advice.
"In fact, if you are contacted by Test and Protect anywhere in Scotland, please comply fully with their advice, particularly, in relation to self-isolation.
"And we will also make available this afternoon, a list of the more than 20 licensed premises that are part of the contact tracing operation in Aberdeen.
"And if you have been in one of these premises in the last two weeks, but have not been identified as a close contact, our advice is to still be extra vigilant, looking out for symptoms and also to particularly rigorously follow all of the FACTS public health advice.
"Now, I know that all of this is deeply, deeply unwelcome news for people in Aberdeen, it’s very unwelcome news for all of us, I did not want to be standing here today making these announcements and I’m very sorry that we are in this position.
"I understand the impact these measures will have – on individuals and businesses, though let me emphasise that where a business has brought staff out of furlough, those staff can be re-furloughed, as part of the Jobs Retention Scheme.
"But generally, the last thing we want to do is to re-impose these kinds of restrictions.
"But this outbreak is reminding us just how highly infectious Covid is.
"So our precautionary and careful judgement is that we need to take decisive action now, difficult though that undoubtedly is, in order to try to contain this outbreak and prevent further harm later on.
"As I said earlier, this is also about doing everything we can to ensure our children can return to school next week.
She explained: "Aberdeen schools are holding orientation sessions from next Wednesday, with schools due to open fully the following Monday, August 17.
"Acting now, we judge, gives us the time and the space to protect the ability of our young people to return to education.
"We’ve seen plenty of instances – in other countries – where outbreaks have run out of control – because action has been taken too late.
"There are no guarantees for any of us, in any of this but we want to do all we possibly can, to try to avoid that happening here.
