NICOLA Sturgeon has confirmed swathes of west central Scotland are likely to be placed in near-lockdown this week.
The First Minister said moving to tough level four restrictions for a "limited period" could allow restrictions to be eased over Christmas.
She said ministers and officials are poring over the latest data and a final decision will be made tomorrow.
Level four would see non-essential outlets such as shops, bars and restaurants forced to close, while gyms and public buildings would also shut. Schools would remain open.
Speaking during her coronavirus briefing, Ms Sturgeon said "We are talking the west of Scotland in particular."
She said councils within the Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board area are causing the "most concern", with the possible exception of Inverclyde.
North and South Lanarkshire could also be targeted, while surrounding councils such as Ayrshire and West Lothian are being looked at too.
Ms Sturgeon said parts of the west of Scotland have "stable but stubbornly high" prevalence of the virus.
She said this means there is not enough assurance that hospital and intensive care services will be able to cope over the winter.
The First Minister added: "Stubbornly high prevalence means that we might have less flexibility to offer some limited and careful easing of restrictions over the Christmas period, which we are very keen to do."
She said moving to level four restrictions for a "limited period" would help to address such concerns.
Ms Sturgeon said the priority for Christmas is to allow families "some ability to get together".
She added: "If we do go to level four for any areas tomorrow, then part of it - not the whole reason, but part of the reason - is to try and get prevalence down to the point where we think we can have some limited easing around that."
Elsewhere, she stressed it is not a "one-way street".
She said: "We'll also be looking to see whether there are any parts of the country that should go down a level, where prevalence of the virus has fallen sufficiently and we're satisfied enough about the sustainability of that."
Asked about those areas that could go down a level, Ms Sturgeon said this would only affect a very small number of council areas, "one or thereabouts".
She pointed to areas in the east of Scotland, such as East Lothian, but stressed no decisions have been taken.
Ms Sturgeon said it is the "objective and intention" to keep schools open in areas under level four restrictions, despite concerns raised by union leaders.
And she said mandatory travel restrictions, underpinned by law, are being considered as parts of the country move to level four.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel