Three Love

Indoor hugs and overnight stays for some as the next phase of lockdown easing unveiled. Scots now days away from getting haircut, enjoying drink in pub and returning to church

- Vivienne Aitken

Scots families will be able to reunite indoors from today and are now allowed to stay over in each other’s houses.

And from next week you can get a haircut, go to a restaurant or pub indoors and go to church, but with no singing.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said, with the virus now suppressed to a low level, she was able to move into phase three of lockdown easing - but said there would be a staggered lifting of restrictions to avoid “bearing all of the risk at once”.

She said: “We should all savour our first indoor meetings and meals with friends, our first pint in a pub or our first catchup over coffee. I know many of us are looking forward to our first non-amateur haircut in many months and there will be other milestones and reunions over the next couple of months.

“They have all be hard earned by each and every one of us but I have a duty to be crystal clear with the country that this is a time of real danger. Next week represents the most substantial lockdown easing so far, so we must remember Covid, although at very low levels just now, is still out there.

“We mess with it at our peril.”

She pointed out that Scotland’s infection rate is currently five times lower than the rest of the UK so was, therefore, in a better position to proceed to the next phase.

There were no deaths from coronavirus registered overnight and just six new cases.