PM's coronavirus alert system will 'give idea' of Scottish scheme

The new Covid-19 alert system for England announced by the Prime Minister will give an idea'' of a similar scheme to be proposed in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon has said.

In Holyrood last week, the First Minister said a tiered alert system will be put before MSPs for approval after the October recess and could come into effect when stricter measures are due to be eased on October 25.

Boris Johnson announced a three-tier system for England in the House of Commons on Monday.

The new measures feature three different classifications for local areas, depending on the prevalence of Covid-19 - medium, high or very high risk.

Speaking at the Scottish Government's daily briefing in Edinburgh on Monday after a Cobra meeting with the Prime Minister and other leaders of the devolved administrations, Ms Sturgeon said the proposals in Scotland will be aligned as much as possible with those across the UK.

She said: At a strategic level, we will be looking to align as closely as possible with the other UK nations - I think it is important and it makes sense to try to do that.

Though, I would stress that operational decisions about what tiers may apply in which parts of our nations will be for each of us to take at a devolved level.''

While the proposals in Scotland will be similar, the First Minister said they should not be taken as a mirror of the English procedures.

She said: I would caution against looking at the English proposal and assuming it will be absolutely identical because we only saw that this morning and we want to look at that properly.''

The First Minister added: When you see what's published in England today it gives you an idea of the kinds of things that we're talking about.''

Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr Johnson said: This is not how we want to live our lives but this is the narrow path we have to tread between the social and economic trauma of a full lockdown and the massive human and indeed economic cost of an uncontained epidemic.

With local and regional and national government coming together in a shared responsibility and a shared effort to deliver ever better testing and tracing, ever more efficient enforcement of the rules and with ever improving therapies with the mountains of PPE and the ventilators that we have stockpiled.

With all the lessons we have learned in the last few months, we're becoming better and better at fighting this virus.''

Ms Sturgeon said the central belt, where heavier restrictions are in place for the next two weeks, would be classed as tier three in the English system - the most severe - while the rest of the country would be in tier two.

A proposal will be brought before MSPs next week, the First Minister said, with the aim to debate it the following week.