MacNeil welcomes school closures

Commenting Angus MacNeil said: “This situation is absolutely unparalleled in our lifetimes and beyond. It is the right thing to do to close the schools and reduce the number of avenues the virus can take to spread between people.

“It is right that church services and any large gatherings are suspended to help reduce the spread of the virus.

“From information we have, we are on a trajectory roughly as steep as the Spanish trajectory.

“We are six days behind Spain at the moment and about 15 days behind Italy.

“Therefore, it is right that action is taken to prevent the spread of the virus.

“Meanwhile, many people are rightly very anxious about making ends meet and the UK government must ensure that they provide the social safety nets that are available in other countries.

“An emergency guaranteed income should be involved, and this time people should be bailed out and not the banks.

“Government should be testing more, if the UK was testing to the level of Iceland or the Faroe Islands, we would have a better picture of what is going on and we would probably be more aware of where the clusters of Coronavirus are now.

“Unfortunately, the UK is doing a lot of this blindfolded, against World Health Organisation advice and Scotland is caught in that web too.”