Nicola Sturgeon has said she will not shy away from taking a decision to impose quarantine on English visitors to Scotland, but it is not a decision she would take lightly. Asked on the BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show about the possibility of self-isolation for visitors from south of the border, the first minister said the UK nations needed to work together on outbreak management in a way that mitigated “against having to put any border restrictions in place”. She said she was not “immediately planning” to implement a quarantine policy, but added: “I will take decisions the best I can to protect the health of Scotland and to take that absolutely from a public health perspective.” She said the Scottish government had to take a “very close look” to make sure the virus was not coming in to Scotland from other parts of the UK. “This is not about saying to people in England: ‘You are not welcome in Scotland.’ Of course people in England are welcome in Scotland,” she said. “This is not about politics, it’s not about a constitutional agenda, it’s just about taking decisions to protect people in Scotland as much as possible from Covid.” Sturgeon said she would like to see the UK government be more explicit that it was trying to get to levels of coronavirus that were “virtually elimination levels”. “We need to be sure that any outbreaks in England are being properly managed, just as England will want to be sure that any outbreaks in Scotland are properly managed,” she said. “It’s when there isn’t that confidence that the concerns about possible importation would grow.” The Scottish government has been criticised for its policy early in the pandemic of discharging hospital patients into care homes without being tested for coronavirus. Almost half (46%) of Covid-19 deaths in Scotland have been connected to care homes, according to the National Records of Scotland. Asked about her government’s record, Sturgeon said she regretted and apologised for every death from Covid-19. But she added: “What I absolutely refute is that there was some particular problem in Scotland or that we didn’t take great care.” She said excess deaths in care homes were lower in Scotland than in England, with Scotland attributing more of them to coronavirus.