Transcript of the FM's Daily Briefing -
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon :
"Good afternoon everyone, thank you for joining us. I am joined here today by the Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Nicola Steedman, who'll say a few words shortly.
I will start with the usual runthrough of the daily statistics. An additional 175 positive cases were confirmed yesterday. That represents 2.7% of people who were newly tested yesterday. The total number of cases is now 22,214.
80 of today's cases are in Greater Glasgow & Clyde, 39 in Lanarkshire, 24 in Lothian, and 12 in Ayrshire & Arran. The remaining 20 cases are spread across another 6 health board areas.
I should flag up that the situation in Lanarkshire is causing some particular concern today.
There will be expert public health discussions over the course of the day, and depending on the judgements and conclusions they arrive at, it may be that some additional restrictions will have to be applied there. We will, however, keep people updated.
I can also confirm that 269 patients are currently in hospital with confirmed Covid. That's 3 more than yesterday. 8 people are in intensive care. That's 1 more than yesterday.
But I'm pleased to say that in the past 24 hours no deaths were registered of patients who had tested positive. The total number of deaths under that measurement therefore remains 2,499.
Of course, that total always reminds us that this virus has had a terrible impact, and I want again to convey my condolences to everybody who has lost someone.
Today, I want to focus on the two key announcements that we made yesterday, just to underline the importance of both.
Firstly, the Protect Scotland app, as you've probably heard, launched yesterday. It is now available for download. More than 600,000 people have already downloaded the app, so if you're one of those, thank you for doing so.
But for the app to be as effective as possible - to help us in the fight against Covid, and also help us live a bit more normally, we need as many people across Scotland to download it and use it
So if you haven't yet done so, you can download it via the Protect.scot website, or you can go to the Apple or Google Play app stores and simply search Protect Scotland and you'll find the app there.
The process for downloading it is really quick and simple. You don't need to provide any personal information. The way the app works is also really simple.
If you test positive for Covid, you'll be given a code by Test & Protect that you will enter into the app. Once you do that, the app automatically identifies any other app users that you've been in close proximity with.
That means anyone you've been within two metres of for more than 15 minutes within a particular timescale.
The app will then immediately alert those people that a contact of theirs has tested positive - though they won't know who that is - and it will provide them with information and links to advice on self-isolating.
Similarly, you will receive an alert if a contact of yours has tested positive, but again, you won't know who they are. Everything about the app is anonymous and confidential.
It doesn't replace the current Test & Protect system - instead it is an enhancement of that. It will be particularly useful for settings like public transport, where we tend to spend time in close proximity to people we don't know.
So we wouldn't be able to give the details of these people to a contact tracer who telephones us.
We also think it will be very valuable as students start to arrive back at college or university.
So if you're a student about to go to college or uni, make sure you download the app, because it will help with you having a bit of normality into how you go about your daily lives.
And if you have relatives that are about to start college or uni make sure you remind them to go on and download it.
One of the crucial things about it is that it helps to reduce the time it takes to notify contacts.
If you think about it, our manual contact tracing system is excellent, it's doing a great job, but by definition the time taken to phone somebody, take the details of them and then contacting those people takes a bit of time.
If you think about it, our manual contact tracing system is excellent, it's doing a great job, but by definition the time taken to phone somebody, take the details of them and then contacting those people takes a bit of time.
By contrast, the app provides contacts with an almost immediate notification, which will then be supplemented by advice, as necessary, from the Test & Protect team.
For all these reasons - and I really want to stress this - this app is a really important way in which all of us can support Test & Protect in the efforts they are making but also a really important way for all of us to keep our communities safe.
In the face of Covid we can all feel a little bit powerless right now. But this is a way of us doing something positive that helps in that collective effort.
Let me just stress, again, because I know there are some people understandably who have some concerns about any technology. This app has been designed with privacy absolutely in mind.
It's anonymous and confidential, as I said a moment ago, it doesn't track your movements, it doesn't know where you are or track your location.
Apart from the most minimal of data it needs to work, it doesn't collect or pass on data. Your data won't be passed to the DWP, or HMRC, or anybody else. Somebody like me can't go and look at anything about you because it doesn't identify you personally at all.
So it's a really good innovation and a good enhancement of this vital Test & Protect system that, as we go into winter, becomes ever-more important.
I'll come back to the simple fact I started with. The sign-up rate we saw yesterday, overnight and into today is excellent - probably beyond our initial expectations.
But we've got to keep that going, we've got to keep the numbers growing, because the more of us who download and use it, the more effective that app will be, and the more effective Test & Protect will be overall in helping us to tackle Covid.
I would encourage you to visit protect.scot, download the app today, and spread the word to all of your family and friends as well.
It's a really simple thing we can do, but it's a really important thing all of us can do as individual citizens to help protect Scotland as a whole.
The second issue I want to highlight are the new rules and guidelines that were announced yesterday.
In particular, I want to emphasise the new rules on social gatherings. Now, you know that since July up to 8 people from 3 households have been able to meet indoors. The limits are a bit higher for outdoor gatherings.
These limits no longer apply - a maximum now of 6 people from a maximum of 2 households will be able to meet together.
Now, I know that is a really tough restriction. That's why I want to assure you that the decision we made on this wasn't taken lightly.
At the moment we believe this is necessary to try to limit and restrict as much as we can the transmission of the virus between different households.
To put it bluntly, this virus wants to find new households to infect. That's pretty much all it cares about, and to survive it has to transmit from person to person, from household to household.
So in order to push it into retreat, as we did over the summer, we have to limit the opportunities for it to spread between households.
Whether this virus thrives or dies is down to the opportunities we give it or deny it. So to reduce transmission and also to simplify the rules, this new limit will apply indoors, in houses, pubs, and restaurants, and also outdoors, including in private gardens.
There are some limited exceptions - for example, for organised sports and places of worship - I also outlined yesterday an exception to allow up to 20 people to attend funeral wakes or wedding and civil partnership receptions.
And any children under 12 who are part of two households meeting up don't count towards the limit of 6 people.
Now, our initial decision, for the reasons I've talked about, trying to limit that spread between households, is that children under 12 do count towards the household number. So children from several different households can't gather together in your home.
I have asked for some additional expert advice to see if, in some circumstances, we could exempt children from the two household rule as well - so, for example, children's birthday parties could go ahead, even on a limited basis, as long as adults complied with the limits.
We intend to clarify this over the next few days, hopefully in the early part of next week.
That indicates that we don't want these rules to be applied any more severely than they have to be, but we have to make sure that they are being applied stringently enough in order to have the desired effect.
That's why some of these decisions are quite difficult and we need to think carefully about them.
The basic rule though, just to remind people, is that in any setting indoors or outdoors for now you should not meet in groups of more than 6 people from a maximum of 2 households.
The regulations that will give legal effect to these measures will come into force on Monday and more detail will be available on our website. But I'd encourage people to start sticking to them now rather than waiting for them to take legal effect on Monday.
And, of course, for now, people living in Glasgow, East or West Dunbartonshire, Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire, the advice is not to visit other people's households at all.
I know all of this can be really hard to understand. As you might have heard me say in one of the briefings earlier in the week, at an earlier stage of the pandemic, when we were saying to you 'stay at home', that was quite easy for people to understand.
Very hard to abide by, but easy to understand. It's a bit more difficult now, and I really get that. We're trying to simplify the rules as much as possible.
But the point I wanted to just briefly touch on right now is the fact that I know sometimes these rules right now seem to be inconsistent.
One of the young people in my own life messaged me this morning to ask - pretty forcefully - why she can be with her friends at school all day today but she can't be with her friends later on.
To be fair, that's not an unreasonable question. But the basic answer is this. We're having to restrict interactions in the population generally to try to keep the virus at a low enough level to keep schools open.
Because we know being at school is so important for young people educationally and socially.
So what can appear sometimes to be inconsistencies are actually just the essential trade-offs we need to make to avoid going back into lockdown more completely, and to avoid, if at all possible, having to close schools again.
So I know this can be difficult to understand, but I'd seek to give you an assurance that we do think carefully about all of this - and while it can sometimes be difficult to fathom it, there is a rationale behind the decisions that we are taking.
Now, yesterday we also decided to implement two additional measures to reduce the risk of transmission in the hospitality sector. Again, these will take effect legally on Monday but there's no reason why people shouldn't start to abide by these straight away.
Firstly, it will become mandatory for customers in hospitality premises to wear face coverings when they are not eating or drinking - for example when they enter the premises and go to their table, or when they leave the table to go to the bathroom.
Second, it's already recommended in guidance that staff working in hospitality premises wear face coverings, but from Monday, that advice, subject to some exemptions - the same exemptions that apply to face coverings elsewhere - will become law.
The hospitality sector has put an awful lot of effort into making it safe for people to go out and meet up and I'm very grateful to them for that.
These additional protections are all about helping to ensure that the sector can remain open, because that matters for the large numbers of people who work within it - as well as the people who enjoy the services that it provides.
Now, the final point I want to make before handing over to Nicola Steedman is that the changes that were announced yesterday are, I know, really unwelcome.
I didn't want to announce them and I'm sure that none of you wanted to hear them. But in our judgement, imposing more restrictions now on how people meet up is necessary to avoid a stricter lockdown later.
Over the past month and a half, the average number of cases recorded in Scotland each day has been more than trebling every three weeks. That's not sustainable if we are to keep schools and businesses safely open.
So we have to act now in order to try to stem that increase and avoid more restrictive measures becoming necessary later.
The other point I made yesterday that I want to stress today - this is all really frustrating and tiresome for everyone. But on the upside, we are in a stronger position now than we were back in March.
Cases are not rising as quickly, and that is partly because now we have Test & Protect operating and people are much more used to having to do all of the basic things to try to limit the spread of the virus.
So we're in a stronger position, but we must protect the progress we've made and try to stop the virus running out of control again.
Particularly because we've always known, going into winter with colder, damper temperatures and conditions, we are likely to see this virus spread again more quickly.
So please, stick to the new rules of 6 people in 2 households. Don't wait until Monday, do that now. Always remember the other measures that will minimise the risk of you passing the virus on to other people.
The simplest way of trying to remember all of that is FACTS. These are the rules that all of us, if we follow them, will help keep transmission as low as possible.
So face coverings, avoiding crowded places, cleaning hands and hard surfaces, keeping to two-metres distance, and self-isolate and book a test if you have symptoms.
I spoke earlier about downloading the Protect Scotland app, as a really powerful and helpful thing we can do to all help our communities.
It is, and I would encourage you to do that. But so is sticking to these five rules in FACTS. The basic point, that was true back in March, that I think motivated all of us through really dark and difficult times, remains just as true today.
While our experiences are all different - I know that - but fundamentally we are all in this together and fundamentally it is only together that we can save lives and beat this virus.
So, please, continue to play your part by doing all of the things we ask - download the app and comply with the FACTS guidance.
Thank you to everybody for doing that and please continue to spread the word."