A teaching union leader has urged the Scottish Government to shut schools early ahead of the festive break to help contain the spread of the Omicron variant of Covid.
Larry Flanagan, the general secretary of EIS, warned that more schools would have to close or move to remote learning if they cannot be staffed.
It comes as Deputy First Minister, John Swinney warned today that cases of the variant are "galloping through Scotland".
The Scottish Government estimates that Omicron cases will double every two to three days and are likely to add up to more than half of all cases by next week.
More than 4,000 new coronavirus cases have been recorded in the past 24 hours in Scotland.
According to the latest Scottish Government figures, 4,002 new cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed since Friday.
Among those positive tests, 38 new cases of the Omicron variant have been identified, taking the total in Scotland to 159.
Healthcare staff in England are reported to have been told to start preparing for the mass vaccination of primary school childern in anticipation of approval by regulators.
However Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi said the JCVI is still looking at the evidence as to what level of protection it would offer those children.
Mr Flanagan told The Sunday Times: "The Scottish Government should consider an early Christmas closure if a firebreak is needed to fend off a new wave of infection.
"There is no threat to next May's exams as yet but the situation is being monitored and discussed."
Many schools break up for Christmas and New Year next week.
The Scottish Government is due to provide an update on any possible additional restrictions this week but speaking today on BBC's The Sunday Show, Mr Swinney said schools would be the "last thing to close".
He said: "We have made clear that we want to maintain education and that will be the last thing that we close.
"We want to maintain education because young people have suffered so much interuption to their education and we want to avoid that."
Mr Swinney said it was "completely wrong" to assume that the situation is less serious because symptoms appear to be milder in the cases already identified.
He said the scale of infections would likely result in some people requiring hospitalisation, putting pressure on already fragile services.
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