Scotland beginning to ease omicron restrictions

Scotland is beginning to ease its omicron wave restrictions after limiting crowd sizes shortly before Christmas. 

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told parliament Tuesday that restrictions put in place in an effort to quell the surge in COVID-19 cases driven by the omicron variant will slowly be removed, starting with those limiting crowd sizes for outdoor sporting events, Reuters reported. 

​​”From next week, we will begin to lift the measures introduced before Christmas, but we will do so in a phased and careful way, starting with the removal of attendance limits on live outdoor events from Monday,” Sturgeon said.

Scotland also added a booster shot requirement to get into venues if a person is four months past their initial vaccination. A negative lateral flow test is also acceptable to get into those areas, Sturgeon said.

Sturgeon credited booster shots and the public’s response to the variant for the success Scotland had in weathering the worst of the surge, according to Reuters. 

Scotland still has other COVID-19 measures in place, such as social distancing, indoor crowd limits and restrictions limiting restaurants that serve alcohol to only providing table service. 

“Although it might not feel like it, we are in a much stronger position than last year,” Sturgeon said when the restrictions were announced in December.