Covid: Nicola Sturgeon asks Boris Johnson for more financial support to combat Omicron variant

Nicola Sturgeon has written to Boris Johnson asking for more financial support to combat Omicron.

The First Minister told the Scottish Parliament she was “acutely aware of and deeply concerned about the considerable impact” on businesses of her government’s advice for people to limit social interaction.

She said businesses need the “scale of financial support” that was available earlier in the pandemic.

But she added: “However, there are simply no mechanisms available to the devolved administrations to trigger the scale of finance needed to support such schemes.

“We need the UK Government to act urgently and in the same way some other countries are already doing.”

She said the issue needs the “urgent engagement of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor”.

“We must not sleepwalk into an emergency that for both health and business will be much greater as a result of inaction than it will be if we act firmly and strongly now,” she said.

“I have therefore written to the Prime Minister this morning appealing to him to put the necessary support schemes in place. Such is the urgency I’ve asked to speak to him directly later today.”

It comes as Professor Chris Whitty told the Commons Health and Social Care Committee he believes the doubling rate for Omicron will slow down, as it is clear people are already taking precautions.

“I think what we will see with this, and I think we are seeing it in South Africa, is that the upswing will be incredibly fast even if people are taking more cautious actions – as they are – that will help slow it down, but it is still going to be very fast,” he said.

“It will probably peak really quite fast and my anticipation is it may come down faster than previous peaks, but I wouldn’t want to say that for sure.

“In terms of where we are going over the next few weeks, the rate of increase is going to be quite impressive.”

Later, adopting an upbeat tone, he said he is optimistic about the future and suggested the country will not be in this cycle for years to come.

Asked whether he has advised the Government to do more to protect against the spread, he said the only formal advice comes from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage).

But he added: “What the Government has said, and I think what we have all said, is to make really tough economic and social decisions there are some really key bits of information we do not yet have, and there’s a very wide range of possibilities as to where this could go, some of which are very difficult for the NHS indeed, and some of which are much less so, and we’re getting new information all the time. This is being reviewed by the Government all the time.”

He said Plan B and “really critically the booster programme” are intended to slow things down, “but obviously if the facts change and it becomes clearer that things are heading the wrong way, ministers are always going to take constant reviews of this”.

He said if vaccines are less effective than expected, that would be a “material change to how ministers viewed the risks going forward”.