Nicola Sturgeon's talk of coronavirus quarantine for visitors from England may already be hitting tourism – Bill Jamieson

The Scottish Government needs to urgently clarify its position on the idea of quarantining people from England, writes Bill Jamieson

The Royal Border Bridge at Berwick. Could travellers from England to Scotland have to observe a period of quarantine? (Picture: Jane Coltman)

It is heartening news that the latest figures from the National Records of Scotland reflect the continuing fall in the number of Covid-19 coronavirus deaths in this country, with the number having now gone down for a total of nine weeks in a row.

However, Nicola Sturgeon warned this week that she could not rule out the possibility of quarantine for visitors from south of the border in future.

The First Minister also said Scotland was not yet ready to accept “air corridors” which would mean that people could travel to Scotland from other countries with low infection rates.

She said there are “no plans” at the moment to introduce quarantine from people entering Scotland from the rest of the UK, but added the authorities must be alert to cases “coming into” the country and the measure could not be ruled out.

Not only would resort to such a measure effectively kill off what is left of our tourist sector but implementation and policing would bring colossal problems.

As it is, the mere mention of the possibility of quarantining would be enough to deter many visitors.

Clarification on this cannot come quickly enough.

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