Scotland’s system of mandatory vaccine passports for nightclubs and sports venues is to end next week, as Nicola Sturgeon moved to lift rules requiring face masks on buses and in shops. Sturgeon told MSPs the Scottish government believed the lower health and social impacts of the Omicron variant justified lifting the country’s remaining Covid-19 regulations, phased over the next four weeks. She said the regulations requiring club-goers and sports fans to present proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test to enter venues – one of the most unpopular measures for the hospitality sector – would be lifted on Monday 28 February. On 21 March, assuming there was no fresh upsurge in infections, the regulations requiring face masks on public transport and in shops would end. Instead, people would be urged to use face covering voluntarily. Regulations requiring businesses, places of worship and services to adhere to Scottish government rules on controlling Covid and supporting clients and staff would also end on 21 March, she added. She said Scotland, in contrast to England, would maintain the recommendation for people infected with Covid to self-isolate: it would be irresponsible for Covid-positive people to shop or go to work carrying the virus, she said. “It is worth stressing that isolating when positive with a highly infectious virus – and the follow-up tracing – remains one of the most fundamental public health protections that we have available to us.” The first minister added, however, that she was deeply alarmed at the UK government’s plans to stop funding population-wide free Covid testing in April for England. Because the UK government funded free testing, that raised serious questions for the Scottish government about how it would pay for continued testing. Her officials are pressing Whitehall ministers for more information on the plans outlined by Boris Johnson, the prime minister, on Monday, alongside the Welsh and Northern Irish governments. “We have no clarity on how much of the Covid testing infrastructure the UK government intends to retain; no clarity on how much investment will support it in future; and no clarity on whether the Treasury will provide additional resources to pay for it or demand instead that funding is taken from elsewhere in the health budget,” she said. Based on a new Covid threat assessment system being used by the Scottish government, she said her officials believed the current threat posed by Covid-19 was medium. “Governments must act lawfully – and that means we cannot impose legal restrictions when it is disproportionate to do so. As the situation improves and the severity of the impact from Covid reduces, we are duty-bound to remove legally imposed restrictions,” she told the Scottish parliament. She said 18 deaths from Covid-positive patients were registered on Tuesday, while 25 people remained in intensive care. Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader, said the lack of detail from Sturgeon about the future of free testing and how new risk levels would be determined was frustrating. “At a time when people are looking for more certainty about the future, there are not yet answers on the fundamental measures that will be in place to protect Scots,” Baillie said. “We were promised a framework, but this looks like a progress report.” Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, welcomed the decision but said these measures mirrored proposals from the Tories two weeks ago. Sturgeon described them as reckless at the time, he said. The Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC), which estimates Scotland’s shops lost £5.8bn during the pandemic, also welcomed the lifting of mandatory regulations. “We hope there will now be a concerted effort to encourage commuters and shoppers back to our town and city centres,” said David Lonsdale, the SRC’s director.