Nicola Sturgeon says the position we're in is ‘not a collective failure' of the public but rather it is a 'success of the virus'

Speaking in the first daily coronavirus briefing of the year, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said that the new strain of the virus feels “completely different” to what they were dealing with last year.

First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon

The First Minister said that she would definitely not describe the position that Scotland is in right now as a “failure on the part of the public” because for large parts of 2020 they were doing “everything right” and it showed in the figures across the country.

She went on to say that there has been two major game changers that have brought us to where we are now.

The first being the positive news of the vaccines, but the second being that the virus has developed into something that feels “completely different”.

She said: “We're suddenly facing a virus that, you know, is the same virus just a different strain, but it feels like a completely different virus because it is transmitting so much more quickly, not just a wee bit more quickly, but perhaps 70% more quickly.

"And that just changes the whole picture. It's meant that the virus has been able to run ahead of all the restrictions that we were all living under towards the latter part of last year.”

The First Minister went on to say: “I've never tried to shy away from the fact that governments have got things wrong and my government has got things wrong, I've got things wrong in this and that will undoubtedly continue to be the case I will try very hard not to.

"But we are still in a really difficult, complex, challenging and in many respects still unprecedented situation.”

A message from the Editor:Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.