First minister confirms changes to rules on outdoor meetings

More people will be able to socialise outdoors in Scotland from Friday.

Up to four adults from two households will be able to meet locally in any outdoor space, including in private gardens, for social and recreational purposes as well as exercise.

The first minister says that people should only go indoors if it is essential in order to reach a back garden, or to go to the toilet.

Outdoor non-contact sports and group exercise will also resume for adults in groups of up to to 15 people from this date.

Young people aged 12 to 17 will be able to meet outdoors in groups of up to four people from four different households, participate in outdoor non-contact sports and other organised activities in groups of up to 15, and travel across local authority boundaries to participate in such activities.

Nicola Sturgeon says that if progress in suppressing the virus continues, places of worship will reopen on March 26 with attendance limits increased from 20 to 50. A final decision on this move will be made on March 23.

Ms Sturgeon said: "In recent weeks, we have seen a significant fall in new cases, deaths and hospital admissions, and the vaccination programme is progressing beyond our initial expectations. All of this is excellent news, and provides strong grounds for hope, but that hope must also be balanced by caution.

"The changes announced today, while modest, are important, and are designed to help people’s health and well-being by enabling group exercise and allowing more social interaction. They will also let children see more of their friends, and exercise and play more normally.

"With continued progress, we believe the reopening of places of worship can be achieved relatively safely, and will hopefully enable more people to draw strength, comfort and inspiration from acts of collective worship.

"I expect that further, more substantial changes will be possible in the weeks ahead, and I will set out as much detail as I can about that in Parliament next week. If the data allows us to relax more restrictions more quickly than we have previously indicated, we will not hesitate to do so."

Meanwhile invitations to coronavirus vaccination appointments will start to be issued this week for people aged 50-59, who were not included in previous priority groups.

Vaccinations to those aged between 55 and 59 years old (group eight on the priority list) will begin next week, with those aged 50-54 (group nine on the priority list) starting to receive their injections the week after that.

Over the next few weeks the volume of vaccine available to Scotland is expected to increase.