Nicola Sturgeon makes a plea to Scots to stay home as Omicron surges
The new variant is expected to become the dominant strain tomorrow
Last updated 16th Dec 2021
Nicola Sturgeon has written to Boris Johnson asking for more financial support to combat Omicron as she made another plea to Scots to cut back on social contacts before Christmas.
The First Minister told the Scottish Parliament she was "acutely aware of and deeply concerned about the considerable impct" on businesses of her government's advice for people to limit social interaction", but there were no mechanisms to trigger the scale of finance needeed to support such schemes.
She said businesses need the "scale of financial support" that was available earlier in the pandemic.
"We need the UK Government to act urgently and in the same way some other countries are already doing."
She said the issue needs the "urgent engagement of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor".
"We must not sleepwalk into an emergency that for both health and business will be much greater as a result of inaction than it will be if we act firmly and strongly now," she said.
"I have therefore written to the Prime Minister this morning appealing to him to put the necessary support schemes in place. Such is the urgency I've asked to speak to him directly later today."
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Omicron spreading even faster
Omicron is "spreading exceptionally fast, much faster than anything experienced so far in the pandemic", Nicola Sturgeons has said.
She told MSPs in the Scottish Parliament: "Let me be clear, this is not a choice between protecting health and protecting the economy."
She said a surge in infections "will cause and indeed is already causing staff absences that will also cripple the economy and other critical services".
She added: "Please reduce your contact with people from households other than your own as much as you possibly can. For now, please stay at home much more than you normally would and as much as is feasible.
"Right now the risk of getting Covid from interactions with others is high and it is rising. So ask yourself before doing anything you might have planned over the coming days, is it as safe as it needs to be and is it vital enough to you to justify that risk.
"I suspect what is most important to most of us over the next couple of weeks is having time with our families at Christmas. Every interaction we have before then increases the risk of us getting Covid and so possibly losing that"
Omicron makes up nearly half of cases
Omicron is likely to be the dominant strain of coronavirus in Scotland from tomorrow, Nicola Sturgeon has said.
Speaking in the Scottish Parliament, she said 5,951 coronavirus cases were reported on Wednesday, 45.4%of which were likely to be Omicron.
She said she was "profoundly concerned" by the challenge posed by the variant which is "running faster than even the fastest rollout of vaccines".