The First Minister said Scotland should not lull itself into a “false sense of security” despite a comparatively lower death rate than England.
Nicola Sturgeon said the country is at an “earlier stage” of the spread of the virus than England but it was not true to say it was on a “different path”.
The latest figures from 9am on Friday show there were 3,001 positive cases in Scotland with 172 deaths, compared to 31,797 cases and 3,302 deaths in England.
Speaking during an hour-long special radio interview on Friday morning, Ms Sturgeon added: “I don’t think it’s true to say we are on a different path. We are at an earlier stage of the spread of the virus than England as a whole but London, in particular.
“That doesn’t mean that we’re on a different path. It just means we’re at an earlier stage of that path.”
The First Minister said she was “hopeful” that the stage at which the lockdown measures were applied in Scotland, may mean the peak of the virus is lower than it will be in other parts of the UK.
She added: “But that’s not because we’ve been following radically different strategies or on a fundamentally different path.
“It’s just because we’ve applied these lockdown measures at an earlier stage of the infection curve.
“You look at the figures right now, case numbers proportionally are lower, numbers of deaths are lower. But not lull ourselves into a false sense of security around that.
“Hopefully what we have done and the stage we have done it mean our peak will be lower but we don’t know that for sure yet.”
Peak still some time away
During her press conference on Friday, the First Minister warned the coronavirus peak is still some time away as she announced the death toll had increased by 46 on the previous day to a total of 172.
She said: “I want to be very clear that nothing I have seen gives me any basis whatsoever for predicting the virus will peak as early as a week’s time here in Scotland.”
Scotland’s chief medical officer Dr Catherine Calderwood also stressed that people should stick to the lockdown measures, adding it would be “many months” before the country gets on top of the virus.
She said: “I have not been able to find that the peak will be as soon as we’re hearing in the media today.
“Now is not the time to think that perhaps it will all be over soon.
“We have always said that many months will be needed before we can get on top of this virus and be sure that we’re not going to have a worse scenario later.”
