Aberdeen lockdown measures to stay for another week

EDINBURGH: Lockdown measures enforced in Aberdeen last week after an outbreak in the city will remain in place for at least another week, Nicola Sturgeon has said.

There have now been 177 confirmed cases linked to the coronavirus outbreak in the city, with 940 people contact-traced.

Sturgeon said at First Minister’s Questions on Wednesday that Aberdeen City Council and Police Scotland were involved in the decision to continue the local lockdown measures.

The First Minister thanked people in Aberdeen after she said police reported a high level of compliance with the additional lockdown measures.

She said: “I know people in Aberdeen, who of course are today dealing with severe weather as well as Covid, will be disappointed with this decision but I want to thank them for complying so well with the measures that we put in place last week.”

The First Minister added there is not yet a need to place extra restrictions on Aberdeenshire county as a whole. “I want to stress that nobody wants these restrictions to be in place for longer than is necessary,” she said.

“They will be reviewed in one week’s time and as soon as we can relax any of them, then we will do.” Sturgeon also said the number of cases in Aberdeen shows how quickly coronavirus can spread through a small area.

She confirmed there have been no coronavirus deaths in Scotland in the last 24 hours. A total of 2,491 patients have died in Scotland after testing positive for Covid-19.

The First Minister said 19,126 people have tested positive for the virus, up by 47. She said 24 of these were in the NHS Grampian area.