Good evening folks, We've reached day 50 of lockdown and a lot has happened in that period. We hope you are all staying safe and limiting time outside to essential trips or daily exercise. The main stories in Scotland today have concerned follow-up to last night's revelation about the coronavirus outbreak at the Nike conference in Edinburgh in February, as well as the First Minister's announcement of an additional £50m to help the struggling care sector. Today, we also published the first results from our survey, asking our readers their thoughts on lockdown. Thank you for taking part. Here are the headlines this evening: A further 50 people who had tested positive for the virus have died, taking the total to 1,912 in Scotland by that measure 13,763 people have now tested positive for Covid-19 in Scotland More than 70 per cent of Scotsman readers want to see moves to ease restrictions around visiting family and friends ahead of the re-opening of workplaces, a new survey has found. The First Minister has announced an additional £50m of funding for the care sector to help meet costs Nicola Sturgeon has rejected accusations of a "cover up" over the first cases of coronavirus in Scotland Scottish tourism chiefs have admitted that the whole summer may have to be written off by businesses and that the industry may not be fully up and running again until 2021. UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak has confirmed the coronavirus job retention scheme will be extended to the end of October, but changes will be made The total number of deaths from the virus in the UK is believed to be more than 50,000 A message from the editorial director While I have your attention, I have an important request to make of you. With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our advertisers - and consequently the revenue we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription. Subscribe to scotsman.com and enjoy unlimited access to Scottish news and information online and on our app. With a digital subscription, you can read more than 5 articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content. Visit https://www.scotsman.com/subscriptions now to sign up. Our journalism costs money and we rely on advertising, print and digital revenues to help to support them. By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website. Joy Yates Editorial Director |