Coronavirus in Scotland - 'Stick to the rules' pleads Sturgeon - BBC News
The first minister says she will not hesitate to use the law to enforce group sizes and travel distances after increased traffic and a five-fold rise in police dispersal orders.
Some people were complying with social distancing in The Meadows, Edinburgh, today and some were not Image caption: Some people were complying with social distancing in The Meadows, Edinburgh, today and some were not

Britain and Scotland are moving in the right direction in fighting Covid-19 and easing the lockdown but it needs compliance to prevent another surge in the virus, health experts warn.

Nathalie MacDermott, a paediatric infectious disease specialist at King's College London and who worked in Liberia during the Ebola outbreak, tells BBC Radio Scotland that the new lockdown measures do not mean "we can meet with anyone we want without social distancing".

"The reproduction number is sitting at just under one at the moment and, if you have a reproduction number of one, you essentially have what is essentially a grumbling epidemic," she explains. "Since we are just under one and are too bold in reducing our lockdown measures, or if we don't comply with what the government is asking us to do, we will see the virus get a foothold in the population again."

Linda Bauld, professor of public health at Edinburgh University, says: "All the numbers are going in the right direction. In terms of the R number, we know from the London School of Hygiene it might be around 0.8 in Scotland, so it is very close to one."

Remarking on reports of police fines and lockdown non-compliance, she adds: "The Scottish government's decision to move slowly should be welcomed, but as we have seen from the scenes at the weekend, the people are very frustrated."