this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. borisjohnson says people should "stay alert" as he prepares to lay out his roadmap for lifting restrictions in england, but his government faces criticism the message is confusing. so "stay alert" will mean stay alert by staying home as much as possible but stay alert when you do go out by maintaining social distancing, washing your hands, respecting others in the workplace and the other settings that you'll go to. and this is the scene in edinburgh where nicola sturgeon will give an update on scotland's response to coronavirus shortly — we'll bring that to you live.

as of 9am this morning, there have been 13,000 cases confirmed. a total of 1484 patients are currently in hospital with either confirmed or suspected covid—19. that is a decrease of 100 nonsense yesterday. a total of 82 people last night were in intensive care with confirmed or suspected cases of the virus and thatis suspected cases of the virus and that is a decrease of 7 cents yesterday. i am able to confirm since the 5th of march a total of 3100 patients who had tested positive and been hospitalised with the virus have now been able to leave hospital. that is very good news and i wish all of them well. u nfortu nately, news and i wish all of them well. unfortunately, i also have to report that in the past 24 hours ten deaths have been registered patients who

had been confirmed through test of having the virus and that takes the total number of deaths in scotland under that measurement to 1857. these figures should be treated with some caution. as we have said before, although deaths can now be registered at weekends, we know registration numbers over the weekend are usually lower than they are during the week. so that should be taken into account when considering today's figures. as always, i want to stress these numbers are not just always, i want to stress these numbers are notjust statistics, they represent individuals whose loss is being felt and mourned by many. as always i send my deepest condolences to everyone who has lost a loved one to this virus. we are all thinking of you at this time. i

wa nt to all thinking of you at this time. i want to thank, as i always do, our health and care workers. you are continuing to do extraordinary work in challenging circumstances and there is not a day passes i don't feel, and we all feel a deep debt of gratitude to you. i have an issue i wa nt to gratitude to you. i have an issue i want to talk about today and that relates to lockdown. let me emphasise from the outset, the lockdown in scotland remains in place. as i have set up before, the rate of transmission of the virus in scotland, the r number you have become used to hearing us talking about is too high for any significant change to be safe at this stage. the r number may be slightly higher here than in other parts of the uk at this point. that means we must be very cautious and very careful about where we proceed to from here. having made real progress in recent weeks, and i think you can tell from the figures iam think you can tell from the figures i am setting out for you that we have made real progress. the objective now for all of us must be to consolidate and solidify that progress. we must not squander our

progress. we must not squander our progress by easing up too soon or send mixed messages that result in people thinking it is ok to ease up 110w. people thinking it is ok to ease up now. let me be very blunt about the consequences if we were to do that. people will die unnecessarily. instead of being able to loosen restrictions, hopefully in the near future, we will be faced with having to tighten them instead. we must not ta ke to tighten them instead. we must not take that risk. for that reason, my basic message for scotland remains the same as it has been, please stay at home except for essential purposes. i have made it clear however that the scottish government will keep what constitutes an essential purpose under review. i told you last week we were considering making an immediate change, a change to the guidance relating to exercise. i can confirm the scottish cabinet met this afternoon and agreed a change to the guidance. at present you are only

permitted to leave home to exercise once every day. from tomorrow, that once every day. from tomorrow, that once a day limit it will be removed. so if you want to go for a walk more often or to go for a run and also of walk later on in the day then you can now do so. it is important to stress this new advice will not apply if you or someone in your household has symptoms of the virus 01’ household has symptoms of the virus or if you received a letter explaining that you are in the shielded group and in those cases, the advice is to still stay at home com pletely the advice is to still stay at home completely and not go out at all. for everybody, all of the lockdown restrictions remain in place. when you are exercising you must stay relatively close to your own home and at all times, at least two metres away from the people from other households. although the rules permit exercise such as walking, running or cycling they don't extend to sunbathing, picnics or barbecues. the fact that you are allowed to

exercise from tomorrow more than onceis exercise from tomorrow more than once is definitely not, and i want to stress this point, a licence to start meeting up in groups at the park or at the beach. doing that it really does risk spreading this virus and it could potentially force us virus and it could potentially force us to introduce stricter guidelines 01’ us to introduce stricter guidelines or toughen up the regulations and penalties in future. what we are confirming today, is a small and important change to one part of the lockdown requirements. we believe it will bring benefits to health and well—being, particularly for people who live in flats and don't have access to private gardens and children, who will have found the once a day limit particularly difficult. but the most important point is this, it will bring those benefits without, in ourjudgment, having a major impact on the spread of the virus. however, the other basic principles and rules of lockdown remain the same for now. u nless lockdown remain the same for now. unless you are doing exercise of performing another essential task,

such as buying food or medicine, you should stay at home. you should not meet up with people from other households because that is how we give the virus a chance to spread, give the virus a chance to spread, give it bridges it can travel over and lead to increased spread. the change i have confirmed today is the only change the scottish government judges it is safe to make right now without risking a rapid resurgence of the virus. we do not come at this point, want to see more business is opening up or more people going to work. our guidance to business remains the same as it has been and we're not changing who can or should at school. you may hear the prime minister announced other immediate changes for england later tonight. that is absolutely his right to do so, i have just that is absolutely his right to do so, i havejust come that is absolutely his right to do so, i have just come from a that is absolutely his right to do so, i havejust come from a cobra meeting with the prime minister and the first ministers of wales and northern ireland. it is important to say i don't expect the detail of

these immediate changes the prime minister to announce will be significant but for the avoidance of doubt, apart from the one change i have made today, the rules have not changed. we remain in lockdown and my ask of you remains to stay at home. however, we will continue to monitor the evidence closely and make further changes as soon as we consider it safe to do so. in the interests of openness and transparency in the grown—up conversation i keep talking about that i want to have, i want to give you as much visibility of that as i can. iam you as much visibility of that as i can. i am going to share with you 110w can. i am going to share with you now over this coming week, as hopefully we will see more evidence ofa hopefully we will see more evidence of a downward trend in the virus, but we will assess further whether it is possible to extend the range of permissible outdoor activities you can do on your own or at a safe

distance. we will consider over the coming days whether garden centres will reopen and think about if additionalforms of will reopen and think about if additional forms of outdoor work, where people work on their own or at a distance can resume. we will be looking urgently inkless discussion with councils of the possibility of reopening waste and recycling centres. i will update you on these further issues next weekend. beyond that, we will continue to consider when and how will businesses can start to reopen, what changes will be required to public transport and when and how children can start returning to school. in the latter point, i do not expect that schools in scotland. to return as early as the 1st ofjune. as well as announcing immediate changes, i understand the prime minister will also set out a longer term plan for england. the scottish government has not yet seen the full detail of this plan so it is not possible for us to simply adopt it for scotland and the

evidence may tell us that moving at exactly the same pace is not appropriate. but we will consider it carefully a nd ta ke appropriate. but we will consider it carefully and take our own expert advice on it and as soon as possible we will set out our own view on the phasing of a more substantial lifting of the lockdown. we are already working with businesses to produce guidance specific to the needs of industry workers and public health in scotland. we will publish that guidance sector by sector in the coming days and weeks and the early priority is to give guidance and visibility to the construction, manufacturing and retail sectors. lastly, in areas which are the responsibility of the uk government in scotland we will make sure our views and concerns are known. for example expect confirmation tonight ofa example expect confirmation tonight of a period of quarantine for people travelling into the uk. i have made it clear that i believe this is vital to our efforts to contain the virus in the period ahead. i would encourage the uk government to introduce that as soon as possible. let me say something about

cooperation between the four nations of the uk. i remain committed to the closest possible cooperation, collaboration and alignment. let me stress again, as i have done so many times, i have no interest when in politics when it comes to tackling this virus. it is perfectly consistent with an overall four nations approach to have a pragmatic a cce pta nce nations approach to have a pragmatic acceptance that we may move at different speeds of the evidence tells us that is necessary. i believe we do now have that acceptance. but genuine consultation and alignment of messages, even perhaps especially when the evidence is putting us on slightly different time lines remains important. we should not be reading of each other‘s plans for the first time in newspapers and decisions that are being taken for one nation only, for good evidence—based reason should

not be presented as if they apply uk wide. clarity of message is paramount if we expect all of you to know exactly what it is we are asking of you. as leaders we have a duty to deliver that clarity to those we are accountable to, not to confuse it. to that end i have asked the uk government not to deploy their stay alert advertising campaign in scotland. the message in scotla nd campaign in scotland. the message in scotland at this stage is not stay at home if you can, the message is except for the essential reasons you know about, stay at home. fundamentally, we have a responsibility and it is a very heavy one to make decisions and set policies based on our own data of what is safe and what is not. i am clear, as first ministerfor scotla nd clear, as first ministerfor scotland at this present moment, relaxing to many restrictions to quickly create a real risk the virus will take off again and i am not prepared to take that risk. that is why i accept, but from tomorrow you

can go out to more than once a day, the current lockdown restrictions remain in place. i hope it will be possible to lift more of them in the days and weeks ahead and as i have set out already, we are making plans for that. at the moment, the risks are still too great. for all of us, in fact this is an important point, the way in which we can emerge from lockdown that bit more quickly is to stick with the current restrictions now. it is easier for us to start leaving lockdown the lower the r number is and the fewer infectious cases they are. please, stay at home except for when you are buying food or medicines or exercising, go for walks and runs more than once a day if you want to, it is good for your health and your physical and mental well—being but stay more than two metres from other people when you are out and don't meet up with people from other households. please wear a face covering if you are in a

shop or on public transport and isolate completely if you are someone else in your household has symptoms. i know that these restrictions continue to be really tough andi restrictions continue to be really tough and i know that hearing any talk about using the lockdown actually makes them seem even tougher. but please, i am asking you tougher. but please, i am asking you to stick with it. we are making progress, never lose sight of that. but even as we stay in touch by phone, social media, video calls, we still need to stay apart physically from each other. we still need to stay at home. by doing that we will continue to slow down the spread of this virus. we will continue, as we have been doing, to protect the nhs and we will save lives. thank you once again to all of you, from the bottom of my heart for what you have been doing and please, for now, stay at home. i am going to questions. i am joined as usual today by the chief medical officer and the health

secretary, who will of course join me in answering questions. but in the interest of time because we have a long list of questions, i am going to go straight to those. can i start with ryan from stv? we have two different messages and this will cause confusion and lead to people to ta ke cause confusion and lead to people to take their own decisions in what rules to follow. how are you going to get the people of scotland to adhere to your message? our message hasn't changed. the message i am giving as first minister of scotland is the one i have given every day since we went into lockdown. stay at home except for essential purposes. extended today what an essential purpose is, you can exercise as often as possible. but the basic

stay at home message remains and the scottish government will take all appropriate steps to make sure that is known and understood. from what i can gather today from the first ministers of wales and northern ireland, the stay at home message remains there as well. it is important, firstly and i do respect the prime minister's right or indeed the prime minister's right or indeed the first ministers of other nations, to take different decisions if the evidence says it is appropriate in their nations. it is really important that all of us try our hardest not to confuse messages. that is why we have asked the uk government not to run its new advertising campaign in scotland, because that would risk undermining the scottish government's message, which is to stay at home. i will keep saying it for as long i consider it necessary, i will not say it for any longer than i consider it necessary, but ijudge it necessary now to advise people, except that these essential reasons you know about, stay at home and that remains the advice in scotland.

glenn campbell, from the bbc. first minister, are you saying people will die unnecessarily because the stay at home slogan has been dropped by the uk government? and given now there is mixed messaging are the scottish and uk governments still following the same overall strategy? what i am saying is i think there is a risk are people dying unnecessarily in scotland if we were to drop the stay at home message. because the evidence i see says we are still at a fragile state and the progress we have made is not yet far enough and not yet strong enough to change that overall message. the prime minister will look at the evidence in england and reach his own conclusions. and i absolutely believe that all of us are seeking to ta ke believe that all of us are seeking to take decisions we think are right in the circumstances we face. my advice and my conclusions and my messaging is for scotland. there is a lwa ys messaging is for scotland. there is always a risk of mixed messaging if

we are exiting because of differential evidence. we might be moving at a slightly different pace. we do accept we need to have that flexibility. but that does not mean we don't continue to cooperate and collaborate. we have an agreement in each nation the government there is in the lead in terms of the messaging and then i think we can have a four nations approach we all respect that allows for differences where the evidence says those differences were essential and we all communicate that message properly. i have very much we can do that. and i think for the prime minister, and i think it is a point he recognises, he has to be clear with people that some of what he is saying applies to england and not to scotland, wales and northern ireland. they will be at the things he says iran border control that applies for the whole uk, but there isa applies for the whole uk, but there is a responsibility in all of us to

be clear in our messaging and the applicability of the messaging, and if we work hard to do that, there is no reason we can't continue to give that clear messaging. to be clear, you did say last week that to drop the stay at home message would be potentially catastrophic. is the prime minister coating catastrophe? iam taking prime minister coating catastrophe? i am taking decisions based on the fa ct i i am taking decisions based on the fact i think i'll r number may be higher and it is not safe for scotla nd higher and it is not safe for scotland to substantially change our position. it is for the prime minister to judge position. it is for the prime minister tojudge that position. it is for the prime minister to judge that evidence in england and come to his conclusions. it is possible for our own populations we are both taking perfectly defensible and justifiable decisions. but i am here to speak

about decisions i make as first minister for scotland. scotland, right now given the fragility of the progress and given the critical point we are at, it would be catastrophic for me to drop the stay at home message, which is why i am not prepared do it. i am particularly not prepared to do it in favour of a message that is vague and imprecise. i feel very in favour of a message that is vague and imprecise. ifeel very strongly, and imprecise. ifeel very strongly, and it is a responsibility i bear and it is a responsibility i bear and feel very heavily, i am asking all of you to do things right now that are not normal in everyday life. therefore, i have a duty to be able to be clear to you about what my message is to you involve in terms of what you can do and what you cannot do. stay at home except for certain things, is a clear message and allows you to make the judgment about what you can and cannot and should and shouldn't do. i don't know what stay alert means. presumably we live our lives in normal times staying alert to danger. but if i say my message to

you is stay alert and you say to me, does that mean i stay at home or not? i cannot give you a straight a nswer to not? i cannot give you a straight answer to that. i am failing in my duty to be clear in what i'm asking you to do. that is why stay at home is important in scotland right now and while i will continue for as long, but not any longer i feel is necessary to ask you to follow that advice. phil mcdonnell from global. he said on twitter you only found out about the new stay alert message through the newspapers. you have had a chance to speak to the prime minister this afternoon, what reason did he give you why your government wasn't consulted and why has there been a breakdown in communication?” think the prime minister is well aware of my view that reading of each other‘s plans in the newspaper for the first time is not a helpful or sensible way to proceed. we are

not in normal times, this is not a normal political issue, it is not an election campaign, it is not details over a budget or a programme for government, this is information that is really, really critical to people's safety. and without exaggerating, these matters are of life and death so it is important we share our thinking and share the decisions we are making, albeit we might make slightly different decisions at times and i hope we move forward in a way that respects that rather than have a situation where i or any other of the first ministers are seeing a change in the guidance the uk government is giving, even if it isjust guidance the uk government is giving, even if it is just for england on the front pages of a sunday newspaper. great peyton. there is a change in messaging from the uk government without any consultation with the devolved nations make decisions harder to

make? what did the prime minister say when you asked him for the stay alert advertising campaign not to be deployed in scotland? on the latter point, there were discussions between the communication teams in the scottish government and the uk government taking place over the last little while. i am confident we will get that agreement and the scottish government will continue to make sure the messages we want through our advertising is the m essa g es through our advertising is the messages you are reading newspapers all seeing on the television or hearing on the radio. in terms of the wider point, this is something i think, when we think through it is not too difficult and i think we have agreement here. i am absolutely committed to a four nations approach, cooperating, collaborating where we can, aligning messages. the fa ct where we can, aligning messages. the fact that we, for good evidence based reasons take slightly different decisions or on a

different decisions or on a different timescale, should not be seen as a breakdown in the four nations approach. it is possible to have a four nations approach that accepts, for pragmatic reasons, that we do things slightly differently or ona we do things slightly differently or on a different timescale. what does make a four nations approach more difficult to sustain in the future is if decisions are being taken and even inadvertently being presented as uk wide decisions when they are not, without proper consultation. that is what i think it is difficult andi that is what i think it is difficult and i hope we will not see in the future, where we can get back to a position sharing our thinking and coming to view is that even when we are doing things slightly differently, we understand each other‘s positions and don't end up confusing each other‘s messages. simonjohnson from confusing each other‘s messages. simon johnson from the confusing each other‘s messages. simonjohnson from the telegraph. just coming back to that, thousands of scots will watch the prime minister's broadcast tonight. this

campaign will run on platforms such as facebook, where it may be difficult to screen out scottish people seeing it. is it possible to cross it off scotland and prevent scots from seeing the new advice in england? and are you thinking confusion will result from this?” am not going to be able to stop people in scotland seeing this messaging. people can see it on the front page of the sunday newspapers today. but i'm treating the people of scotla nd today. but i'm treating the people of scotland like the intelligent human beings they are. i am saying, you will see this, but hopefully not in blanket coverage, but i am telling you and asking you to abide by the messages the scottish

government is giving. we are giving these messages for the right reasons because we think they are the right reasons now to suppress this virus. 0ne reasons now to suppress this virus. one of the reasons i stand here every day and deliver these messages is because it is important you hear it directly from me of the cabinet secretary and the cmo what we are asking you to do and we are as clear about that as possible. most of us are quitea about that as possible. most of us are quite a media savvy these days soi are quite a media savvy these days so i think we can understand these things. let's not overcomplicate this. people in scotland, in terms of the advice we are giving, listen to what the scottish government advice is and please follow that. if you live in england, listen to the advice the uk government is giving. if you live in wales, listen to the welsh government and similarly in northern ireland. people are perfectly capable of understanding that. the daily mail. good afternoon. i appreciate you are

trying not to comment on decisions for england, but do you believe the decisions that are going to be announced tonight could lead to an increase in infection rates in england, which therefore could have a consequential impact on scotland's infection rates? we all have to be very conscious of the need to be very conscious of the need to be very cautious right now. of course, i have said the virus doesn't respect border so if the infection rate was to run out of control in one part of the uk, clearly that has implications for other parts of the uk. if the evidence shows that certain things can be lifted in one pa rt certain things can be lifted in one part of the uk without risking the virus running out of control again, then clearly governments in that particular part of the uk are entitled to make decisions based on that. my overall watchword here is caution. and i make no apology from that. i have just

caution. and i make no apology from that. i havejust been reading some material from germany that suggests the transmission rate in germany, as they started to ease up things has gone overfont again. they started to ease up things has gone over font again. what that tells us is the margins for error here are really narrow. and it doesn't take very much, right now it doesn't take very much, right now it doesn't take very much, right now it doesn't take many more social interactions between different households that are not mixing right now for the virus rate to start to increase. that is why we have to be careful because if we go too fast right now we risk all the progress we've made. i don't want to be in a situation here where, having asked you to be in lockdown for seven weeks now that we get so impatient, andi weeks now that we get so impatient, and i get so impatient to tell you that i want to ease things up that we squander that progress and end up in lockdown for a lot longer than would otherwise be the case. nor do i want, would otherwise be the case. nor do iwant, in would otherwise be the case. nor do i want, in a couple of weeks from

now to be looking at a situation with the virus has run out of control again and you are saying to me, why didn't you exercise more restraint and caution and why did you ease lockdown too early? i have said all along, these are tough decisions, finely balanced decisions and there is no certainty about the impact ofany and there is no certainty about the impact of any of them. in those circumstances my duty is to be as cautious as possible, to do as much as we can to continue to protect health and avoid people dying unnecessarily and that is what i am going to try to do. do you want to say something from your perspective about the state of the evidence right now and the need for us to continue to be very cautious? at the moment, like other people we have been monitoring very closely a range of data that allows us to track what the current picture is for this infection and the way it is transmitted across scotland. we have

been watching very closely the numberof been watching very closely the number of new cases every day, the number of new cases every day, the numberof number of new cases every day, the number of hospitalisations both to general wards and intensive care and of course the number of deaths. what that tells us is that very slowly we are seeing a gradual decline in the numberof are seeing a gradual decline in the number of those cases and that is very encouraging. but i emphasise, it has been a very slow decline. when you use the data to try to calculate where we are both in terms of new infections across the country but this all—important r number, there is insufficient confidence to say it is sufficiently below that magical one number to be able to say any significant change in the restrictions we are enduring right now would not lead us back into the exponential growth. that is the danger. that we relax things too early, make the changes too significantly, but the message begins to change and that r number begins to change and that r number begins to change and that r number

begins to grow and from that