All schools in Scotland to close by end of week as third Covid-19 death revealed

All schools in Scotland are to close at the end of this week, Nicola Sturgeon has announced.

In a briefing at St Andrew’s House in Edinburgh, she also revealed a third patient in Scotland diagnosed with Covid-19 has died.

There are now 227 confirmed positive coronavirus cases across Scotland.

Ms Sturgeon said: “I want to be as open and transparent as possible.

“My view is that it is now inevitable that we will close schools and nurseries.

“My planning assumption now is schools will close to pupils at the end of this week and I wanted today to give parents notice of that now.”

She said that schools have lost too many staff to continue as normal and that the government is still working out the finer detail of “what this will all mean”.

She added people should not assume schools will reopen after the Easter break and she could not promise they will open before the summer holidays.