Scottish revellers urged not to travel to England for New Year’s Eve | Scotland
Scottish revellers planning to travel to English cities for Hogmanay celebrations have been urged to stay at home, to avoid spreading the Omicron variant.
John Swinney, Scotland’s deputy first minister, said travelling to England to bypass the closure of all nightclubs in Scotland would be the “wrong course of action” and went against the spirit of Scottish policy.
“People are free to take those decisions, but I would discourage them from doing so,” Swinney said on BBC Breakfast on Wednesday morning. “I think it is the wrong course of action for people to take because we have a serious situation we have got to manage and we encourage everybody to play their part in addressing that.”
Swinney, the Scottish government’s Covid response minister, said the rate of spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 was “alarming” and rising far faster than any previous variant. Earlier this week, Scotland reported its highest ever number of daily cases reported on Sunday, at 11,030.
Read More: Scottish revellers urged not to travel to England for New Year’s Eve | Scotland