Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister, has suggested in
today’s governmental coronavirus briefing that international travel reopening may
still be some way off.
Sturgeon said that the Scottish government expects the
restrictions on travel to and from England and Wales to be lifted on 26 April.
She added, “It may still be necessary in future to have
temporary travel restrictions to and from places with high rates of Covid. We
will be very serious about mitigating any risk of importing the virus, and
particularly new variants of the virus, into Scotland, so we may see some
limited travel restrictions in future either within Scotland or between
Scotland and other parts of the UK.”
However, the First Minister warned: “I should stress however, and I know this is
difficult, that international travel does remain a significant risk –
particularly given the acceleration of spread that we are seeing in many other
parts of the world and given the possibility and reality of new variants
of the virus being imported into Scotland.
“It
may be the case that we have to endure restrictions on international travel for
a bit longer, as the price we pay for much greater normality here in
Scotland.
“We
will not keep these restrictions in place for any longer than necessary, but it
is important right now to protect our progress here so we don't make the
mistakes we perhaps made as we came out of lockdown last time and open up
international travel too quickly and then compromise and jeopardise the
progress that we have made.”
Sturgeon said she hoped rules on international could be agreed on a four nations basis.