The Political Leader of Shetland Islands Council has reacted to today's announcement by the First Minister that Shetland will remain in Covid Protection Level Three.
Steven Coutts said: “It is apparent that Scottish Government wish to see Scotland move in ‘lockstep’ through the levels in the Strategic Framework. There appears to be no capacity for regional variation despite the data showing that the pandemic is being experienced differently across Scotland, and there is a difference in the effectiveness of track, trace and isolate in island communities.
“The Council’s position remains that Shetland should be in the level that our Covid data supports. The Scottish Government need to consider the proportional impact of these restrictions across the four harms not solely focused on the numbers of new cases of the virus and there should be no additional barriers to travel placed on our islands compared to other areas of Scotland.”