Following a meeting of the Scottish Government Resilience Room yesterday (Sunday 23 August), First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced a timeline for the lifting of the opening of hospitality alongside the lifting of travel restrictions and limits on indoor meetings for Aberdeen.
As part of a regional lockdown, pubs and restaurants were shut on Wednesday 5 August and restrictions on travel and visits to other households were put in place following a rise in coronavirus cases linked to bars and nightlife in the area.
Hospitality business owners are being urged to get in touch with Aberdeen City Council if they have not already had an environmental health check.
Transmission update
FACTS rules for Scotland:
F – Face coverings should be used in shops and on public transport
A – Avoid crowded places
C – Clean hands frequently, using soap and water whenever possible
T – Two-metres to observe physical distancing
S – Self-isolate and book a test if suffering from Covid-19 symptoms
The meeting included Aberdeen City Council, NHS Grampian and Police Scotland and heard the latest update from the Incident Management Team on the level of the virus and its transmission in Aberdeen.
The latest figures found a total 427 cases have been identified in the Grampian Health Board area since 26 July.
Of these, 259 are associated with the same cluster linked to Aberdeen pubs and 1,258 contacts have now been identified from those.
Sturgeon said: “I am grateful to people in Aberdeen – the local authority and health board, local businesses and everyone who lives there – for complying so well with the rules that were put in place to prevent the spread of Covid-19."
Commitment of people
She added: “In particular, I am grateful for the understanding of the businesses that were required to close in order to help beat the virus.
“It is due to the commitment of people in the city, as well as world-class contact tracing that means we are now able to lift some of these measures from Monday (24 August) and then again from Wednesday (26 August), but it is vitally important everyone follows the FACTS rules in order to prevent an outbreak of this scale occurring again.
“That way, we can move forward and get our economy, our society and our lives generally back to as much normality as possible.”
The Scottish Government has not ruled out extending restrictions if necessary to protect public health.
