RUSHES: Coronavirus: Nicola Sturgeon press conference December 21st

Coronavirus: Nicola Sturgeon press conference December 21st; SCOTLAND: Edinburgh: INTNicola Sturgeon MSP (Scottish First Minister) opening statement SOT (Part 1 of 5). - Thank you for joining us.As you can imagine, the fact that I am speaking to you at 5pm on the Saturday before Christmas - having just chaired an emergency meeting of my Cabinet and spoken to the leaders of the opposition parties - suggests a serious situation, and one that requires action to be taken.The information I have received about the new variant of the virus suggest to me that we do face a serious situation right now. It is probably the most serious - and potentially dangerous - juncture we have faced since March.But if we act now, we can prevent that serious situation materialising.I want to set out clearly today what - for Scotland - the situation is;I will set out why in light of that I consider very firm preventative action to be necessary;And I will outline the further action that the Cabinet has this afternoon agreed to take.As I set out in Parliament earlier this week, Covid cases in Scotland had been falling in recent weeks - as a result of the tough restrictions in place - but in the most recent week had started rising again in parts of the country.As a result, a number of local authorities were put into tighter level 3 restrictions and a number of others required to stay there.However, it is also the case that the situation in Scotland - right now - is not as severe as it is in other parts of the UK.Cases per 100,000 of the population in Scotland are around half the number in England and around a third of the number in Wales.And our statistics today - 572 new cases, representing 4% of all tests carried out yesterday - suggests a broadly stable position.So all things being equal - while we had no room for complacency - we had hoped we might get through the next few weeks, at least in many parts of the country, without signific...