Coronavirus in Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon says 'no one should be travelling overseas right now, unless for absolutely essential purposes'

In her daily coronavirus briefing today, the First Minister reiterated that in order to prevent the further spread of the virus “no one should be travelling overseas right now, unless for absolutely essential purposes.”
Nicola Sturgeon says 'no one should be travelling overseas right now, unless for absolutely essential purposes'Nicola Sturgeon says 'no one should be travelling overseas right now, unless for absolutely essential purposes'
Nicola Sturgeon says 'no one should be travelling overseas right now, unless for absolutely essential purposes'

Nicola Sturgeon said that she understands talk of travel restrictions is “tough” to hear but that they are necessary to control the spread of coronavirus.

She said: “Fundamentally, we believe that tougher travel restrictions, however unwelcome they are, for all of us are essential to managing the risk posed by new variants, and by new cases coming into Scotland.

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"I think they will become increasingly important as case levels in Scotland, we hope, continue to fall, and that makes it all the more important that we do everything we can to protect against the risks of re-importation.”

She said that “when people travel, the virus travels”, and that that is one lesson we should learn from the earlier stages of the pandemic.

Ms Sturgeon said that they are likely to set out further steps next week, but that at that at this stage, nobody should be booking overseas holidays because our best route back to “domestic normality” is to continue with the vaccination programme and work to suppress the virus here.

She went on to say that while she couldn’t specify what Boris Johnson will be announcing later today, she does feel that the UK needs to “go further” to prevent the spread of the virus and if that doesn’t happen on a four nation basis, she will consider “going further ourselves”.

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