Nicola Sturgeon will address Scotland tonight after chairing Cabinet meeting over new Covid variant

Nicola Sturgeon will address Scotland tonight after chairing a Cabinet meeting over the ‘highly contagious’ mutant form of coronavirus that has cancelled Christmas in the south of England.

The First Minister warned ‘preventative action may be necessary’ in order to stop the strain, which spreads much faster, from taking hold in the country.

Ms Sturgeon has today spoken with Scottish colleagues as well as the leaders of the other devolved nations.

It is not known what she will say during the address, but some reports suggest plans people may have to travel either way across the border over the festive season could be affected.

She tweeted: ‘Following a 4 nations COVID call earlier, I’ll chair @scotgov Cabinet meeting this afternoon to discuss emerging evidence on new variant. 

‘Cases currently at lower level in Scotland than UK – but preventative action may be necessary to stop faster spreading strain taking hold.’

Under Scotland’s current rules, Ms Sturgeon has said that her ‘strong recommendation’ is that people do not mix households over the period in what is ‘unequivocally the safest way to spend Christmas’.

The Scottish First Minister said that meetings should take place outdoors if possible but if it was ‘essential’ to meet inside then she advised people to meet for only one day and to not stay overnight.

Ms Sturgeon urged people against travelling between areas of high and low infection rates and asked people to consider ‘postponing’ Christmas.

‘The reality is that this Christmas simply can’t be normal. But we have every reason to hope that next year’s will be much more normal,’ she added.

The Scottish Government previously said people should keep the numbers within a bubble as low as possible and minimise the length of contact between different households in the bubble. 

Scotland has also said that ‘different people in a household should not pick their own bubble’. 

It comes after Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty this afternoon confirmed that the new variant is more contagious than previous strains.

He said: ‘As announced on Monday, the UK has identified a new variant of Covid-19 through Public Health England’s genomic surveillance.

‘As a result of the rapid spread of the new variant, preliminary modelling data and rapidly rising incidence rates in the South East, the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) now consider that the new strain can spread more quickly.

‘We have alerted the World Health Organisation and are continuing to analyse the available data to improve our understanding.

‘There is no current evidence to suggest the new strain causes a higher mortality rate or that it affects vaccines and treatments although urgent work is underway to confirm this.

‘Given this latest development it is now more vital than ever that the public continue to take action in their area to reduce transmission.’