Nicola Sturgeon to update MSPs on state of Covid in Scotland

Nicola Sturgeon is set to update Holyrood on the state of the coronavirus pandemic in Scotland.

The First Minister’s address to MSPs comes ahead of the introduction of vaccine passports later this week.

The Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) Scotland has instructed lawyers to start proceedings against the policy which will require anyone over the age of 18 trying to enter a nightclub or large scale event proving they are fully vaccinated.

As well as clubs all unseated indoor events with more than 500 people, unseated outdoor events with more than 4,000 people or any gathering with more than 10,000 attendees, will be covered by the scheme.

The industry is seeking a court order to delay the implementation of the policy. They say there has been little consultation, and that the government's definition of a nightclub is unfair.

Gavin Stevenson, the vice-chairman of NTIA Scotland, said: “It is with an extraordinary sense of disappointment and frustration that we have commenced legal action against the Scottish government.

"The Scottish government’s vaccine passport scheme as currently proposed creates serious and unresolvable problems with unfair competition, market distortion, discrimination, resources, staffing and financial impact to businesses.”

Meanwhile, Covid case numbers have been reducing over the last three weeks, though hospital numbers are still high.

Jillian Evans, the head of health intelligence at NHS Grampian said around two-thirds of those in intensive care were unvaccinated. 

She told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland: “The case numbers are reducing, they've been reducing for the past three weeks or so fairly consistently, still at high levels, very similar to that period in July when case numbers were very high, but they have been reducing. 

“It's fairly widespread across Scotland, and the test positivity is reducing, it's now below 10% and that's really good news. It needs to be a lot lower than that for us to feel we've got a sense of the pandemic, but nonetheless, absolutely going in the right direction.

“Hospital admissions are starting to turn the corner a little bit, and some signs of stabilisation. They are still high. And when I was working yesterday I was looking at numbers in my own neck of the woods and noticing that about 67% of our ICU admissions were in people who were unvaccinated, so there's still people becoming seriously unwell in intensive care who haven't been vaccinated and I think that's, that's a really important message.”

Evans warned that there had been a significant drop off in the number of people, particularly those aged between 18 and 29, using lateral flow tests.