On 6 May, I asked the First Minister why she was not following the advice of the World Health Organization, which recommended as safe a 1m social distance rather than a minimum of 2m. It seemed to me from the First Minister’s reply that she was not aware of the World Health Organization’s recommendation, as she simply pointed out that some other countries had different social distances from ours. I ask the First Minister again: should she not follow the science as recommended by the World Health Organization and recognise that a 1m social distance is a safe distance?

I assure Mike Rumbles that I am well aware of WHO recommendations. It is not a competition, but I am prepared to bet that I have probably read much more about the issue than many other people across Scotland have done in recent times. To be perfectly frank, to state the issue as bluntly as Mike Rumbles has done does the issue a disservice. Different countries use different distances—[

Interruption

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If Mike Rumbles wants to listen, I will try to be helpful. Some countries use 1m, some countries use 1.5m and some countries, including the United Kingdom, advise 2m. I am frequently asked why I am not following this or that advice, so I say very clearly that all the advice that I have had here in Scotland at this stage is that we should not change the 2m rule. That is because it is not a simple equation.

If Mike Rumbles reads the research that was part funded by the WHO and published in

The Lancet last week—I am sure that he has read it, since he is asking me the question—he will find that it makes the point that, as the distance is reduced, the risk of transmission is increased. It also points out that there is a relationship between the distance and the time for which it is safe for people to be in contact. Right now, we advise that the distance should be 2m for contact of 15 minutes or more. If we reduce the distance, we might also have to reduce the time. Some countries that have a shorter distance also have different requirements on face masks and face coverings, and we are of course currently considering whether we want to make face coverings mandatory.

We are not talking about straightforward or simple equations, so we have to make a careful analysis. All the advice that I have at my disposal from our advisers says that we should not reduce the 2m rule. However, we will continue to look at that and, in the context of everything else that we do, we will continue to make judgments that are safe in terms of the suppression and transmission of the virus and that allow our economy to operate as close to normal as possible. In any aspect of that, as far as possible, I will not depart from a careful and methodical consideration of all the issues because, with a virus, when we get things wrong—this is not a criticism, but Mike Rumbles would legitimately be one of the first to stand up to criticise me for getting them wrong—people can die. That is why I am not prepared to be reckless about any of it.