Coronavirus in Scotland: Jeane Freeman 'not ruling out' 12 week lockdown urged by public health expert

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman told the public this morning that a 12-week lockdown to control the pandemic in Scotland, advised by a public health expert, ‘shouldn’t be ruled out’.

Jeane Freeman has said that a 12 week lockdown 'shouldn't be ruled out.'

In an interview with BBC’s Good Morning Scotland (GMS) earlier, the health secretary said public health expert Professor Devi Sridhar’s advice on a 12-week lockdown ‘shouldn’t be ruled out’ but noted ‘that’s not where we are right at this moment’.

Her comments come despite fears coronavirus cases are continuing to affect capacity issues in hospitals.

Speaking on GMS, about Sridhar’s lockdown proposal, Ms. Freeman said “That’s not where we are right at this moment but shouldn’t be ruled out.”

Ms Freeman added: "We pay a lot of attention to what Devi Sridhar says and to our other advisers and we will continue to listen to that.”

In an interview with Times Radio, Professor Sridhar said a 12-week lockdown must be put in place to stop the surge of the virus.

She said: "With the numbers we're at, there's no other choice.

"For me, it's a three-phase strategy – first is right now, it's crude, it's catastrophic for the economy and for people's mental health, but a lockdown.

"Get those numbers down, protect the NHS for the next 12 weeks."

Talking about the effect of a rise in cases, the health secretary said: "The winter is always a difficult time for the NHS with higher pressure on it and now not only do we have covid-19 but now an additional more infectious strain so we need to be paying really careful attention.

"The current restrictions have only been in place for a very short time and everybody knows it takes a period of two to three week to see the impact of restrictions so right at this point as we are seeing case numbers 15,030 in hospital yesterday 130 in ICU and test positivity of 10.7% - these are not good numbers we need to see how this week pans out and then see whether or not we believe that acting early and acting fast needs to be continued.”

Addressing the concern of over capacity in intensive care units across Scotland, Ms Freeman noted that the NHS has doubled ICU capacity, saying they could “quadruple this if they have to.”

Freeman’s comments come as the mass community roll out of the covid vaccine for the over 80s begins today with the Government expecting to utilise more than 1,100 GP practices and community centres.

Ms Freeman noted that the Scottish Government will ‘absolutely be able’ to match Matt Hancock’s UK Government pledge for all four priority groups to be vaccinated and invited for vaccination by mid-February and all Scots vaccinated by October 18.

By the end of January, the health secretary announced that the Scottish Government intends to have vaccinated all care home residents and staff, all front line health and social care workers and all those aged 80 and over- just under 560,000 people.

According to the health secretary, around 70% of care home residents and staff as well as half of frontline health and social care workers in Scotland have been vaccinated already.

As of last week, 113,000 people have been vaccinated across Scotland with recent vaccination figures expected to be published by the Scottish Government today.

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