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Scotland's First Minister has warned that any easing of current Covid restrictions is "highly unlikely," ahead of a government meeting on Tuesday to review the current measures.

Nicola Sturgeon told the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday that case numbers made it difficult for the government to consider an easing of Covid restrictions.

"Cases in Scotland are still too high for comfort"

Sturgeon claimed that there was some evidence that the measures taken, including the circuit breaker lockdown in October, and the new five-tier system, were starting to have an impact on the spread of the virus.

So there's not much evidence the lockdown is working, nor was there evidence before that it would work, but despite this they will continue with the lockdown all the same - people's livelihoods be damned.

However, the first minister insisted that they needed to see a "significant and sustained reduction in cases" before making any decisions to reduce Covid restrictions.

© Pool via REUTERS / Andy Buchanan
FILE PHOTO: First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon, West Calder, Scotland, Britain.

The government will be reviewing the five-tier Covid restrictions system for the first time on Tuesday, having introduced it on November 2. Sturgeon said that any easing would be "highly unlikely."

The first minister also described the announcement that Pfizer's vaccine is 90 percent effective as the "best news in weeks."

Considering their track record, it probably is good news to the corporation that the vaccine is finally not harming people: UK scientists confirm efficacy of AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine, day after one volunteer reported dead in Brazil

Scotland's most populated areas are currently subjected to tier-three measures, which sees severe restrictions on hospitality venues and on socializing.

Following a firebreak lockdown in October and the introduction of the five-tiered system, Scotland is the least coronavirus-afflicted nation in the UK.

Overall infection rates in Scotland are significantly lower than in England, with 147.3 cases per 100,000 in the last seven days in Scotland compared to 243.2 cases per 100,000 in England.

One in seven UK mothers barred from seeing sick babies due to Covid-19 restrictions, preemie charity finds

Some 14 percent of parents with sick and premature babies have been prevented from staying at their newborns' bedside by Covid-19 regulations adopted haphazardly by the National Health Service, according to a recent survey by premature babies' charity Bliss, cited by the Mail on Sunday.

© Reuters / Hannah McKay

A Hertfordshire mother told of being forced to "book a slot" to visit her five-week-premature daughter, with only one parent being allowed inside the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Cambridge's Rosie Hospital. A first-time parent, Katie Orger complained that she missed the chance to breastfeed her little girl, and the lack of "skin-to-skin and lasting contact with my daughter" disrupted their bonding.

Another couple was deprived of the chance to visit their daughter together by Royal Bolton Hospital, restrictions they say estranged them from their baby, who was born with jaundice and required oxygen. "When I brought Emily home after nine days, it felt like someone else's child because the restrictions stopped that bond," Carly Maclean told Bliss.

"It destroys a part of you."

During "normal" times, parents have 24-hour access to NICUs. Neonatal care staff and even national authorities like the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health have urged hospitals not to consider parents "visitors" with regard to social distancing and other coronavirus restrictions that are keeping them away from their children, but some individual hospitals have made their own rules.

Parents are "visitors" in the new abnormal.

Bliss concluded its report with a recommendation that the NHS issue a blanket order guaranteeing parents access to NICUs as a "matter of urgency." Its CEO Caroline Lee-Davey explained to the Mail that "our smallest and sickest babies need their parents at their side to give them the best chance of survival, even during a pandemic."

There's good reason for concern for both mothers and babies, as stillbirths nearly doubled between April and June in England while the country shut down "non-essential" care to fight the novel coronavirus. A report earlier this month in the Health Services Journal suggested the official line of "Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives" likely frightened ailing mothers away from seeking care - for themselves and their children.

The UK's lockdown resulted in a spike in excess deaths in private homes as sick people concerned about being a burden on the national system opted to stay home and suffer in private rather than seek treatment or diagnosis for maladies that may have been curable. Ambulance calls to suicides also soared during the first six weeks of lockdown as people were ill-equipped to deal with prolonged isolation.

The UK is far from the only country to adopt questionable treatment of new mothers under the guise of enforcing coronavirus restrictions, however. In France, women are being forced to "mask up" during labor, complicating delivery and even causing lasting psychological trauma according to a group campaigning to end the requirement. In the US, conflicting guidance from health authorities has led hospitals to separate mothers from their newborns and prohibit holding or breastfeeding of babies - even without evidence the virus can be transmitted through breastmilk. In Canada, Montreal's Sainte-Justine Hospital quarantined a new mother for a whopping 55 days, refusing to allow her to hold or nurse her child for the first two months of its life.

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