Coronavirus in Scotland: 'No promise schools will be open before summer holidays'

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has spoken this afternoon on school closures.

All schools in Scotland are to close at the end of this week, Nicola Sturgeon has announced.

In a briefing at St Andrew's House, in Edinburgh, she also revealed a third patient in Scotland diagnosed with Covid-19 has died.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. David Cheskin/PA Wire

She said people should not assume schools will reopen after the Easter break and she could not promise they will open before the summer holidays.

Ms Sturgeon said: "I want to be as open and transparent as possible.

"My view is that it is now inevitable that we will close schools and nurseries.

"My planning assumption now is schools will close to pupils at the end of this week and I wanted today to give parents notice of that now."

She said that schools have lost too many staff to continue as normal and that the government is still working out the finer detail of "what this will all mean".