Pause to be put on lifting of COVID restrictions in Scotland

Scotland's exit from Covid restrictions is likely to be pushed back three weeks.

The whole country had been due to move to level 0 at the end of the month.

Instead, resctrictions will probably remain in place for three weeks from that date.

In a statement at the Scottish Parliament, the First Minister said caution is needed to provide extra time to push ahead with vaccinations.

She said: "Given the current situation - and the need to get more people fully vaccinated before we ease up further - it is reasonable to indicate now that I think it unlikely that any part of the country will move down a level from June 28.

"Instead, it is likely that we will opt to maintain restrictions for a further three weeks from June 28 and use that time to vaccinate - with both doses - as many more people as possible.

"Doing that will give us the best chance, later in July, of getting back on track and restoring the much greater normality that we all crave."

The First Minister said the decision would be confirmed in Holyrood in a weeks time.

The daily figures for Tuesday 14 June show a further two deaths recorded along with 974 news cases of the virus.

The daily positivity rate was 5%, down from 5.2% the previous day, according to figures published by the Scottish Government on Tuesday.

There were 137 people in hospital on Monday with recently confirmed Covid-19, up from 128 on Sunday.

Seventeen people were in intensive care, no change on the day before.

So far 3,531,461 people have received the first dose of a Covid vaccination and 2,470,181 have received their second dose.

However, the Scottish Government said that Public Health Scotland experienced IT issues which had an impact on the extraction of vaccination data on June 15.

It said Tuesday's figures may be an underestimate, and any missing data will be reported in tomorrow's figures.

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