THE Scottish Government is not considering cutting the Covid-19 isolation period to five days, the Health Secretary has said.
Humza Yousaf was asked about the move after UK Government Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi backed dropping England’s quarantine from seven days to five.
The SNP minister told BBC Breakfast it had been risky for Scotland to reduce its isolation period from 10 days to seven.
“The reason why we have made that decision – and it’s important to say that the UK nations all moved at a different pace on this – is that it’s not a risk-free option,” he said.
“It’s not that there isn’t a risk attached with going from 10 days to seven days, there is a risk. It’s just that we wanted time to consider whether or not we would, inadvertently, for example, accelerate the transmission of the virus by cutting that isolation period.”
Yousaf explained on the issue of a further reduction, his Government was “intending to keep that matter under review, but we’re not contemplating at this stage going from seven days to five”.
“It’s not something we’re contemplating, we’ve literally just made the change from 10 days to seven days. I think it’d be sensible to see the impact and the effect of that. But, clearly, we’re always guided by the science,” he added.
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Zahawi expressed support for reducing the isolation period from seven days to five in England, if it can be done safely, in order to reduce staffing pressures on the NHS and businesses.
He said the UK Health Security Agency will investigate whether it can be done, telling Sky: “It would certainly help mitigate some of the pressures on schools, on critical workforce and others.
“But I would absolutely be driven by advice from the experts, the scientists, on whether we should move to five days from seven days. What you don’t want is to create the wrong outcome by higher levels of infection.”
He added: “I hope we will be one of the first major economies to demonstrate to the world how you transition from pandemic to endemic, and then deal with this however long it remains with us, whether that’s five, six, seven, 10 years.”
His comments came after the number of people to have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test passed 150,000.
The country is the seventh to pass the milestone for officially recorded deaths, following the US, Brazil, India, Russia, Mexico and Peru.
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