Omicron: Nicola Sturgeon to attend urgent Cobra meeting on Wednesday

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Nicola Sturgeon will attend Wednesday’s Cobra meeting with the UK government amid warnings to “prepare for the worst case scenario” amid the Omicron outbreak.

The First Minister is expected to take part in the meeting alongside leaders of the Scottish and Welsh governments and the Northern Ireland Executive, and Communities Minister Michael Gove will chair the meeting scheduled for 5pm.

Gove leads coordination with the delegated states, rather than Boris Johnson.

The No. 10 shirt holder rejected pleas from early ministers in Scotland and Wales for emergency talks last week, before finally bowing to demand a Cobra meeting on Friday.

The first minister is believed to be asking the UK government to consider reinstating the furlough scheme, which would allow her Cabinet to impose broader restrictions while allowing affected staff to receive their full or partial pay.

She told Holyrood on Tuesday that the issue of leave had been “constructively discussed at meetings of four countries over the past week.”

“As members would expect, it is an issue raised by me, the First Minister for Wales and the First Minister and First Deputy Minister of Northern Ireland,” she added.

“As I said, I haven’t seen the details of what the UK government has announced; I look forward to seeing that later, and I welcome it.

“The underlying principle here, which should apply across the UK, is that if we feel it is necessary to take measures to protect public health we should not be constrained in doing so by financial considerations.

“It should not be that the money is only run if the UK government decides to take steps; if the Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish governments, operating under delegated responsibilities, think this is important, we should be able to catalyze that support. we will.”

The furlough scheme expired on September 30, 2021, subsidizing the wages of more than 11.5 million workers who were not required to work by their employers.

READ MORE: Omicron: Katie Clark breaks ranks to support SNP claim to reinstate leave

Today’s Cobra meeting comes as UK Health Security Agency chief Jenny Harris warned that the UK faces “staggering” numbers of infections in the next few days from the Omicron variant.

She told MPs the NHS was in “grave danger” from the new strain.

The chief minister delivered a stark warning to Holyrood on Tuesday about the threat posed by the new, more transmissible variant of the delta variant and which vaccines are less effective against it.

She told Scotts that the Omicron variant has an R-rate of 4 as she urged people to limit gatherings to no more than three households, with that advice given after people were asked to postpone Christmas parties.

Read more: Deputy First Minister warns Scotland ‘potential’ to face further COVID restrictions

New social distancing measures will also be introduced in stores.

“With respect to Omicron specifically, our assessment is that it is spreading very quickly,” she told Holyrood.

“The best indicator of this is the proportion of cases that show what is called a gene S leak. For about 95% of all cases in Scotland, tests are currently being processed in a way that allows us to know whether or not a gene S is present.

“This shows that Omicron cases are increasing exponentially – faster than any variable has ever been before.

“When I made a statement to Parliament last week, about 4% of cases showed gene S withdrawal. By Wednesday it was 7%, on Friday it was above 15%.” Today, it is 27.5%.

She added: “We estimate the doubling time to be two to three days – faster than anything that has happened in the pandemic so far. We expect the strain to become dominant within days.”

“This is important because Omicron is significantly more transmittable than Delta. The R number associated with Delta is about one. But the R number for Omicron appears to be much greater than two and possibly higher than four.”

Earlier today, Deputy First Minister John Sweeney said more coronavirus restrictions “may” be necessary before Christmas to curb the spread of Omicron as a health expert advised the country to “be prepared for a worst-case scenario”.

Professor James Chalmers said the measures now taken by the first minister to restrict home mixing may slow the spread of the Omicron variant, but they are not enough to reverse the rise in infections.

Professor Chalmers, head of respiratory research at the University of Dundee, said he viewed the first minister’s announcement as a “gritty statement”.

Speaking on BBC Radio’s Good Morning Scotland, he said: “We hope that such voluntary measures will slow the growth in the Omicron variant, which is rising at an alarming rate in Scotland, but such actions will not alter the growth of the case we have seen.

“I think the government should be ready next week, as we get more data on vaccine protection against severe disease and other gaps that currently need to be filled in terms of our knowledge, to think about what other actions might be needed.

Read more: Nicola Sturgeon tells Scots to reduce home contacts amid Omicron’s rise

“If this is as bad as we think, other measures may still be required over the Christmas and New Year period.

“Modeling looks like it’s a worst-case scenario, we could have a really tough winter, and we can’t let the health service get overwhelmed.

“We need to be prepared and we need to prepare the public because we may need more restrictions.”

His comments came as Sweeney said people should not cancel trips to mumming – but caution if they’re considering traveling on the football fan bus, or letting their child attend a birthday party at someone else’s house.

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