Humza Yousaf has said Scotland is not considering further reducing its quarantine period after UK Government Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi backed dropping England’s quarantine from seven days to five.
Mr Yousaf told BBC Breakfast it had been risky for Scotland to reduce its isolation period from 10 days to seven.
“The reason why we have made that decision – and it’s important to say that the UK nations all moved at a different pace on this – is that it’s not a risk-free option,” Scottish Health Secretary said.
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon — Free lateral flow test scaling back reports 'utterly wrongheaded'
“It’s not that there isn’t a risk attached with going from 10 days to seven days, there is a risk. It’s just that we wanted time to consider whether or not we would, inadvertently, for example, accelerate the transmission of the virus by cutting that isolation period.”
He said on the issue of a further reduction, the Scottish Government were “intending to keep that matter under review, but we’re not contemplating at this stage going from seven days to five”.
READ MORE: UK Government minister Nadhim Zahawi denies reports free lateral flow tests to end
“It’s not something we’re contemplating, we’ve literally just made the change from 10 days to seven days.
"I think it’d be sensible to see the impact and the effect of that. But, clearly, we’re always guided by the science,” he added.
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