Nicola Sturgeon has warned against treating young people like “guinea pigs” by allowing them to get infected with coronavirus when lifting restrictions, amid fears they remain at risk of significant health impacts such as long Covid. Scotland’s first minister said the desire to live free of lockdown-style restrictions did not mean governments could “throw all caution to the wind”, while suggesting the “domination” of England’s plans to scrap Covid rules risked confusing other UK nations. The steep rise in infections across Scotland caused by theDelta variant may be levelling off, Sturgeon added. The current spike has led to six Scottish health boards being placed among the top 10 worst-hit regions in Europe by the WHO last weekend. The levelling off gave her “more cause for optimism” that she would be able to confirm the move to level 0 of Scotland’s five-tier system of Covid controls in parliament next Tuesday, she said, before emphasising that the planned easing on 19 July “won’t be an abrupt end to basic protective measures like face covering, physical distancing, rigorous hand hygiene and advising on good ventilation.” However, she pointed out the “significant” impact the virus can have on younger people, even if there is a lower risk of death. She said: “I want to set out simply why we can’t just throw all caution to the wind. Firstly, this virus is still dangerous, as we see every day. It is still taking lives, though mercifully, thanks to the vaccines, it is doing so in far fewer numbers than we saw in earlier stages. “Secondly, even though the majority of cases are now in younger people, who are much less likely to become acutely ill, the health impacts can still be significant. Many young people are suffering from long Covid, which of course experts still do not full understand. So, it would be wrong and irresponsible, because our young people are not guinea pigs, to have no concern at all for young people infected with this virus.” In England, experts on long Covid have expressed concern over the government’s policy of lifting virtually all remaining lockdown measures. “I don’t think we should be relaxing at all because I have seen first the impact of things on people and we really should be keeping the measures that we have for now,” said Dr Victoria Miller, a consultant psychologist at Newcastle Universities. Long Covid was placing a “huge strain” on sufferers’ psychological wellbeing in a way that was much more complex than other diseases, she told an online seminar organised by the Royal Society of Medicine. “Now we are seeing people who have been isolated for so long and who are getting it. Sometimes the backdrop to those cases is even harder … we are talking about people who may have also lost one or both parents with it.” Others who spoke at the same event linked concerns about the lifting of lockdown measures to numbers of children and young people at risk of going on to develop long Covid. Sturgeon also gave her clearest indication yet that it was “probable” that face masks would still be required in some settings such as shops or on public transport even after 9 August, when the Scottish government aims to remove remaining legal restrictions including social distancing indoors. “I do want to be clear that I think the wearing of face coverings for a period longer is likely to be one of the things we have to do,” she said. Referring several times to the difficulty of differentiating Scotland’s public health messaging from reports of England’s “Freedom Day”, Sturgeon emphasised that the UK government’s decision to end all restrictions in the face of the Delta surge, which has been subject to heavy criticism from public health experts, was “an exception”. The Welsh government has similarly indicated caution around Johnson’s “Freedom Day”. A Welsh government spokesperson said: “Since the start of the pandemic we have taken a cautious, phased approach to reopening and have been led by the data that is presented to the cabinet by the chief medical officer and our scientific advisers, and not driven by artificial dates.” The next review of Welsh regulations is expected next week.