The economic impact of the efforts to tackle the coronavirus pandemic could see Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fall by around a third, according to a report by the Scottish government's Chief Economist Gary Gillespie,

Economy Secretary Fiona Hyslop said: “Our response to COVID-19 is saving lives, but I am deeply aware that the pandemic is having an economic effect that is already being felt across Scotland.

“The Scottish government is doing everything we can to support businesses at this very difficult time.

“We want Scotland to recover as quickly as possible from this outbreak, and that includes rebuilding our economy as quickly as is safely possible."

Andrew Black
BBC Scotland

Image source, Helen Baird

Business owners across the country have started applying for funds to pay staff unable to work due to coronavirus restrictions.

The UK government’s job retention scheme covers 80% of staff wages and it’s been welcomed by sectors like Scotland’s hospitality industry, which would by now normally be gearing up for peak tourist season.

Alan McColm, co-owner of the Real Food Café in Tyndrum, told the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme the furlough scheme would allow him to hold on to the 20 members of staff who work there.

But with a heavy reliance on hillwalkers and other tourists, he says there’s still a financial gap to bridge.

“There’s almost no activity – it’s eerie,” he says, adding: “On a busy day during the summer, we’ll have 2,000 customers coming in.

“As with lots of hospitality businesses in rural areas, we depend on summer trade. The weather we’re having just now is soul-destroying in some ways.”

Alan says he’s taken advantage of the Scottish government’s £10,000 hospitality coronavirus grant and is also looking into bank funding support.

He adds: “Over the next couple of years, we could well find bumper trade in the summer because of staycations – but between now and then it’s difficult to see how that’s going to change.”

Image source, Getty Images

A Scottish charity supporting young women who are survivors of rape and sexual abuse says many women are desperately trying to find routes out of isolation during the coronavirus lockdown.

Pam Hunter, the chief executive officer of Say Women, says there is a risk some women will resort to self-harm or have suicidal thoughts if they are trapped in homes with their abuser.

She told Good Morning Scotland that the charity was trying to maintain regular contact with many women across Scotland aged 16 to 25.

There is increasing evidence that domestic violence is rising during the coronavirus lockdown, with one helpline run by the charity Refuge seeing a 25% increase in calls and online requests for help in the past month.

"We have young women that are coming to us at the moment that are fleeing the home and sleeping rough and have seen no option but to get away from that housing dynamic where the abuse is happening," Ms Hunter said.

Image source, Getty Images

Mr Swinney tells Good Morning Scotland that he expects Scottish schools will remain closed until "at least the summer break".

"We’ve said that schools will be closed for the foreseeable future and when we closed the schools in March we said we thought it was unlikely that the schools would be back before the summer break. That’s as far as I can go today," he said.

He said that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon would be able to give more detail on the school closures later this week, but added the Scottish government would not risk undermining the current lockdown measures and the sacrifices that had been made so far by reopening schools too early.

Mr Swinney told BBC Scotland that "various options" would be considered for managing the eventual reopening of schools, which would be "fundamentally driven" by the public health advice.

Image source, Getty Images

The education secretary told BBC Scotland that the SQA will not rely on a school's past performance when grading pupils.

The Scottish Greens have raised concerns that current pupils will be judged on the basis of previous exams results at a school.

But Mr Swinney said that was not a "fair assessment" on what the SQA were proposing.

He said the SQA would look at a "comparison of estimation with performance".

"It's not saying that how a school did in the past determines how it does today. That's not in any way what the SQA are doing," he said.

The education secretary says that following estimated grades made by teachers there will be a moderation process which will create a "robust assessment system".

The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) will require schools and colleges to sign off the estimates as "robust and reliable", with moderation processes at department and school or college level, Mr Swinney told the BBC.

The SQA will also look at the past performance of the pupil and the school when grading pupils.

"The SQA retain information on performance on young people and schools and individual subjects over many years in extraordinary detail, so are able to apply a degree of moderation," he added.

Education Secretary John Swinney says teachers will be encouraged to make a "holisitic assessment" of pupils' performance when grading them for exams this year.

Exams including Highers and National 5s were postponed for the first time in history this year beacuse of the coronavirus crisis.

Mr Swinney told Good Morning Scotland that teachers were well placed to make the "broadest assessment possible" and submit that to the SQA.

"Teachers will be encouraged to make a holistic assessment about the performance of individual young people," he said.

"They will be looking at all of the experience that they have of the young person... and making an assessment on what they believe the potential of that young person would have been in an exam-based system on the contribution they’ve made.”

Image source, Getty Images

Oil and Gas UK's sustainability director has told BBC Scotland that the energy market is in "chaos" because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Mike Tholen said current oil prices were "not sustainable for all sorts of very obvious reasons".

Yesterday, the price of US oil turned negative for the first time in history.

Mr Tholen said Brent oil was currently at $25 a barrel as there were more routes to market, but said the low prices signalled how challenging it was was to see progress in the UK and Scotland's energy market.

"Thousands of jobs are at risk if we see activity remain so low for a long time," he told Good Morning Scotland.

Andrew Black
BBC Scotland

Image source, Getty Images

What might be the solution to dealing with the collapse in the value of oil in the US due to oversupply - which is now worth less than nothing?

Gary Laing, from investment firm Investec, told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme: “We probably need more demand, which probably only comes from easing coronavirus lockdowns.”

He adds that something could also be done about the oversupply of oil - an historic deal to cut production by 10% was agreed by the Opec group of oil producing countries and its allies earlier this month.

Mr Laing said: “The markets quickly caught on that the deal announced by Opec was insufficient, so really all eyes will be on Opec and Russia to cut supply even further.”

Meanwhile, the price of Brent crude - traded in Europe and across the world - is sitting at just above 25 dollars a barrel this morning.

Does that mean even cheaper prices at the pumps? Not necessarily.

60p of every litre is government tax, so if petrol falls to one pence a litre, the price would be about 70p once VAT is added in.

Six residents at an Aberdeen care home are believed to have died with suspected coronavirus symptoms.

The operators of the Kingswells home confirmed there have been a number of deaths there.

Image source, Google

Bon Accord Care said its sympathies were with the families of those who've lost a loved one.

It said robust infection control measures were in place at the home including social-distancing measures and self-isolation for anyone showing Covid symptoms.

A researcher in educational attainment says that poorer children's education is likely to be hit the hardest by the extended break away from school.

All schools in Scotland have been closed since 20 March in an attempt to slow the spread of coronavirus and are likely to be shut for the remainder of the school year.

Barry Black, from the University of Glasgow, said there was a risk the attainment gap could grow because of the prolonged break.

He told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland that effective home schooling depended on access to technology and the internet, space to work at home and prior parental educational attainment.

Mr Black said there was evidence that attainment of the poorest pupils was affected even during the normal summer holiday break.

"We know from studies done in other countries that over the summer break the wealthiest pupils reading ability actually increases, whereas the poorest pupils' reading ability decreases," he said.

The education secretary will be live on Good Morning Scotland just after the news bulletin at 8.

The team will be asking him about the detailed arrangements for awarding exam grades and the factors that will govern the eventual return to school.

Listen live on BBC Sounds

Andrew Picken
BBC Scotland News

Image source, Getty

A dozen care homes in Scotland do not have enough staff to meet the needs of their residents, official figures show.

Nearly one in five care homes have flagged up concerns over staffing levels to watchdogs since 3 April.

The vast majority of these homes are now properly resourced after seeking Scottish government support.

But 31 homes are still graded as "only just able to provide" the right staffing levels, while a further 12 "no longer have adequate levels" needed.

Read more

Industry body Oil and Gas UK says the fall in the price of oil could have a significant impact on the sector in the longer term.

In the US prices have fallen to negative values - with producers in effect paying to have the commodity taken off their hands as they struggle with storage problems.

Image source, Getty Images

While the US market is subject to special trading conditions, the price of Brent crude is also low, around $25 a barrel.

OGUK chief executive Deirdre Mitche said it was a "body blow" for an industry already creaking under the strains of Covid-19, and she warned it could endanger the transition to cleaner fuels.

Image source, Get

That means oil producers are paying buyers to take the commodity off their hands over fears that storage capacity could run out in May.

The price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the benchmark for US oil, fell as low as minus $37.63 a barrel.

Demand for oil has all but dried up as lockdowns across the world have kept people inside.

The US oil market has some unique factors - and elsewhere the price of Brent Crude is holding up at around $25 a barrel. But UK producers are still warning the low prices could have a lasting impact on the sector.

Read more

Image source, BBC/The Nine

A leading biomedical scientist has told BBC Scotland's The Nine that Scotland is not using its testing capacity to its full potential.

Allan Wilson, president of the Institute of Biomedical Science, said "demand isn't there" because the current strategy is to focus on testing symptomatic key workers.

He echoed past calls for a new testing strategy, adding "we need to think about how we do contact tracing".

Mr Wilson said he does not believe Scotland is doing enough surveillance testing - and that it would be "useful" to have a background knowledge of where the virus is located.

It comes even though Scotland has not yet met its target of completing 3,500 tests per day.

Mr Wilson said Scotland is currently testing nearly 3,000 per day and will likely achieve its target by the end of the month - "with the capacity to go higher in May".

He added: "I think we're doing better in Scotland than in England - we're doing more testing per head."

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the latest developments around the coronavirus crisis in Scotland.

Some of the events around the world overnight include President Trump saying he will temporarily suspend all immigration to the US, and the airline Virgin Australia has gone into administration.

Here, the UK oil and gas industry has warned the plummeting international oil prices could have a long-term impact on the sector.

We'll keep you up-to-date with everything including the latest Scottish government briefing from Edinburgh at lunchtime.