Christmas lockdown 'likely to be tightened next week', Linda Bauld says

Professor Linda Bauld - a chief social policy advisor to the Scottish Government - told the BBC that we “may well” see a re-introduction of restrictions next week, but that currently considerations other than health had to be taken into account.

She said that decisions on lockdowns were being looked at in the context of the “Four Harms”. These are: direct Covid health harms, non-Covid health harms, economic harm, and wider societal harms.

Bauld said that if Covid health harms were the only issue, then “we would all be asked to stay at home right now and effectively stop mixing”.

However, she said doing so would “be concerning to people as well because if you have large numbers of the workforce, or people in education, not able to access that it will have knock on effect”.

“It's a really tricky time”, she added.

READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon urges Scots to cancel Christmas parties as Omicron cases rise

The Edinburgh University professor went on: “I do think there will likely be further changes [to lockdown rules] next week and my own view is I hope that the UK will have some alignment on this, because it's very confusing for people if there are particular approaches in one area and not in another.

“We are all interconnected.”

Despite having initially rejected calls from Wales and Scotland for a four-nation Cobra meeting to discuss the Omicron variant, the Tory government convened such a meeting on Friday.

Michael Gove (below), who chaired the meeting as Intergovernmental Relations Minister, said the leaders had been shown “deeply concerning” data about the pandemic.

Opening the door to further restrictions, he said: “We recognise the importance of balancing people's abilities to get on with their lives, with the need to protect them against this virus.

"But action is absolutely required, and as new data comes in we will consider what action we do require to take in the face of that data."

He said Omicron now accounts for 30% of all the Covid cases in London.

Speaking to the BBC, Bauld said that there was a case doubling rate of around 2.3 days. She said such rapid growth was “causing real worry”.

READ MORE: Omicron could be the dominant Covid strain in UK within a week, experts warn

Asked if a reintroduction of restrictions could see a repeat of 2020, when people across the UK were asked to cut back on the Christmas plans, Bauld said it was a “possibility”.

She went on: “But I hope that it won't be a repeat of last year. I certainly think that one of the things that people found hardest to deal with was saying well you can only see a certain number of people in your own home etc.

“I think in a perfect world if we didn't want anybody to come into contact with anyone else that they weren't living with that is what the advice would be - but isolation, loneliness, separation from loved ones etc, is something we also want to avoid.”

The public health expert further described changes to rules around self-isolation, announced by the First Minister on Friday, as a “big shift”.

In a bid to safeguard public health, any household contacts of a positive case of Covid-19 will now have to self-isolate - regardless of their vaccination status or a negative test result.

Discussing “early signs that the disease [caused by the Omicron variant] might be milder”, Bauld cautioned that there were still issues to face.

“Even if you've got fewer people going into hospital, when you've got many, many thousands of infections, you're still going to end up with bigger numbers at this time of year. That's obviously the main and genuine concern.”