Party on... carefully, says Leitch

SCOTS should still go to their Christmas parties but should get tested and ensure everyone is vaccinated, according to the national clinical director.

Professor Jason Leitch yesterday said people should not cancel their festive nights out or work parties but ‘make them as safe as you can’.

Speaking to Sky News, he said lateral flow tests should be used by all those attending events and encouraged hosts to ‘endeavour to have everybody vaccinated’.

He also suggested socially distancing, though admitted that this was ‘ridiculous’ when people would probably be dancing and enjoying their party.

The discovery of the new Omicron variant of Covid has prompted fears that festive events could be scrapped or toned down. Hospitality chiefs have already warned that they are seeing

some planned events cancelled amid concern that the new variant is more transmissible than previous Covid strains.

But Professor Leitch insisted that celebrations should go ahead.

He said: ‘Don’t stop your arrangements to go Christmas shopping or visit your mum or have your office night out, but do it very carefully.’

However, he added that he would ‘use a lateral flow before I went to that’.

Professor Leitch also said: ‘I would endeavour to have everybody vaccinated before I went to that and I would be careful when I was there.

‘That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t enjoy the Christmas party.’

He also suggested a series of other measures people could take to stay safe while attending large festive gatherings.

He said: ‘I’d have alcohol gel on the way in and I would make sure people were as distanced as you could, but I realise that’s ridiculous.

‘So you can’t do it completely, but you can have safe events.’

Professor Leitch revealed that his 81-year-old parents would be taking lateral flow tests before arriving at his home on Christmas Day as he encouraged others to do the same before seeing family or friends.

He added: ‘You can have gatherings. The science helps you have them more safely so why wouldn’t we do that?

‘So, don’t cancel. Make them as safe as you can.’

Earlier this week, Nicola Sturgeon said that she was not yet ‘asking people to put plans on hold’ although she has not ruled out bringing in restrictions, if necessary.

The First Minister has asked that employers ‘maximise’ the ability of their staff to work from home as a way of limiting social contacts.

Last year the entire country was plunged into a Christmas lockdown following the discovery of the Alpha variant.

Dr Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK’s Health Security Agency, has said that everyone can do their bit to limit the spread of Covid over the winter if ‘we all decrease our social contacts a little bit’.

She added that it was a case of ‘being careful, not socialising when we don’t particularly need to and particularly going and getting those booster jabs which, of course, people will now be able to have at a three-month interval from their primary course.’