Covid: Tougher guidance issued for Christmas in Scotland

The Scottish government is to toughen its Christmas guidance, with people being urged not to stay overnight in another house unless it is unavoidable.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the safest way to spend Christmas was "unequivocally" to stay within your own household and your own home.

Those who feel it is essential to visit another household indoors should only do so on one of the five days.

And any interaction with other households should ideally be outdoors.

The new strengthened guidance will be published by the Scottish government later on Wednesday.

It comes as Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the four UK nations had "unanimously" agreed to keep relaxed Christmas Covid rules in place between 23 and 27 December.

But some advice will change in different parts of the UK, and sterner warnings will be issued to urge people to keep social contact low.

Wales has already said it will be advising that people from only two households, rather than three, should mix over the festive period.

And non-essential shops in Wales will close from the end of trading on Christmas Eve, with the country going into a stay-at-home lockdown four days later.

Ms Sturgeon told her daily coronavirus briefing that the Scottish government would also be issuing strengthened guidance.

However, the current limit on no more than eight people from three households meeting indoors in Scotland will remain in place, with Ms Sturgeon saying it would not be fair or realistic at this stage to remove that flexibility.

She said rates of the virus were currently lower in Scotland than other parts of the UK, but warned against complacency.

The first minister said her government's latest advice was to:

The first minister went on to say that the Scottish government recommends against travel from areas with a high prevalence of coronavirus to parts of the country with a lower prevalence.

She added: "We will set out advice if you are living in any of the nations in one of the highest level of protection - which in England and London is tier three - then we don't think you should be travelling to other parts of the UK."

"If you haven't made plans to form a bubble, please don't", the first minister urged.

"If you are still swithering, please decide against. And if you have made plans but think they are not really essential, please think about postponing until later in the year.

"The reality is that this Christmas simply can't be normal. But we have every reason to hope that next year's will be much more normal."

Prime Minister Boris Johnson later told a Downing Street press conference that "a shorter Christmas is going to be a safer Christmas".

He added: "When we say three households can meet on five days, I want to stress, these are maximums, not targets to aim for, and it's always going to be safest to minimise the number of people you meet.

"If that means you're visiting others, we're asking you, for the five days beforehand, as early as Friday, to reduce the number of people you're in contact with to the lowest possible."

The four UK nations previously agreed a set of rules for the festive period, which has been set down in legislation and is not expected to change - even though the guidance has been updated.

Two leading health journals - the British Medical Journal and the Health Service Journal - warned earlier this week that the "rash" decision to ease restrictions across the UK would "cost many lives".

And they warned that a new strain of coronavirus that has been detected in the UK, including some cases in Scotland, "has introduced further potential jeopardy".

Global public health expert Dr Andrew Lee from Sheffield University said the Christmas period was a difficult balancing act for all politicians.

He told BBC Scotland: "They are all trying to avoid being The Grinch, but the numbers aren't looking good.

"If we have super-spreading over Christmas, we will have a bumper number of infections come January."

Scotland has recorded a further 689 new cases of the virus in the past 24 hours, as well as the deaths of 38 who had tested positive - taking the total by that measure to 4,173.

Separate figures published by the National Records of Scotland on Wednesday showed that 6,092 people in Scotland have died with confirmed or suspected cases of Covid-19 as of Sunday.