The Scottish government’s scientific advisors will report in two weeks on whether social distancing can be reduced in “particular settings and circumstances”, the first minister has said.
Today, as she confirmed further easing of the coronavirus lockdown, Nicola Sturgeon revealed that she had commissioned her scientific advisors’ guidance on whether “it might be possible in the future to recommend a distance of one metres or 1.5 metres”, as opposed to the current recommended distance of two metres.
Later in the day, Northern Ireland announced that it would reduce social distancing to one metre, allowing “full classes” to return to school.
However, Ms Sturgeon stressed that “the shorter the distance, the greater the risk of transmission” and that she would “not change that guidance in Scotland without rigorous consideration and appropriate assurance”.
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Any reduction in the social distancing requirement - which currently sits at two meters - would have huge repercussions for the reopening of schools, given more pupils could attend school at one time.
Aberdeen City Council, for instance, said in a recent report on reopening schools that with the two meter rule in place “a maximum of one-third of all pupils” would be able to attend school “at any one time” - and some schools would be “unlikely to achieve the aspiration of one-third”.
However, if a distance of one metre was in place the council said some schools “may be in a position to welcome nearly all pupils back”; other schools, it said, “may move to two groupings” if social-distancing rules change.
Acknowledging any change in guidance would impact on education, Ms Sturgeon said: “Let me be clear that the advice and evidence we have at this time supports physical distancing at two metres. We know that - although there are no absolutes and we should not see this in isolation - the shorter the distance, the greater the risk of transmission, so I will not change that guidance without rigorous consideration and appropriate assurance.
“However, I have asked our advisers to consider whether there are particular settings and circumstances in which, with additional mitigations if necessary, it might be possible in future to recommend a distance of one metre or 1.5 metres. I hope to have that advice also within two weeks, and I will report on it then. However, let me reiterate that, at this stage, the advice is unchanged: you should continue to maintain two-metre distance from people in households other than your own.”
In her statement to Parliament, Ms Sturgeon also emphasised that “premature easing of too many restrictions” was “our biggest risk right now”. However, she said the “prize for going a bit more carefully now” would be “more normality” - and “getting children back to normal, full-time schooling as quickly as possible”.
