Nicola Sturgeon has announced that 11 council areas, including Glasgow, are to be placed in the toughest level 4 of Scotland’s coronavirus restrictions from 6pm on Friday.
For a three-week period until 11 December, people in level 4 areas are advised to remain at home “as much as possible”, while non-essential shops, leisure venues and pubs and restaurants will close, with the exception of takeaways.
From Friday, people living in level 3 and 4 areas will be banned by law from travelling outside their council area, except for a few essential reasons, Ms Sturgeon told the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood.
Areas going into level 4 for a time-limited period are Glasgow, Renfrewshire, East Renfrewshire, East Dunbartonshire, West Dunbartonshire, North Lanarkshire, South Lanarkshire, East Ayrshire, South Ayrshire, Stirling and West Lothian, said Ms Sturgeon.
The first minister said the new restrictions were “necessary to ensure that the NHS can cope with the range of pressures it will face over the winter” and to get Covid-19 cases down before the health service is faced with the most intense pressures from seasonal illnesses.
And she said: “These decisions will give us the best possible chance, albeit in a limited and careful way of being able to ease restrictions in all parts of Scotland for Christmas.
“That is something, all of us want to look forward to.
“But we also know it will increase the risks of transmission. So we must get infection rates to a lower baseline now.
“These decisions will help us limit the impact of the virus, including in loss of life, as we steer a path through the next few months, towards the brighter times that are now within sight, as vaccines and better treatments become available.”
