WHEN the first minister announced that coronavirus restrictions would be tightened once again, she had the support of the Scottish Greens.

The decision was regrettable, but necessary, to save lives after cases began to once again dangerously rise.

There's no doubt these restrictions are hard on everyone, especially as we head into the cold winter months when socialising outside becomes increasingly challenging.

But while we recognise that restrictions are necessary to save lives, the Scottish Government now has a responsibility to step up and improve its performance in key areas like testing if we are to avoid a constant cycle of lockdowns until a vaccine is available.

Test and Protect is a vital tool but its key purpose is to reduce infections. That isn't happening so the question must be asked; why not?

Ultimately the responsibility lies at the door of the Scottish Government and its time for them to recognise we're falling behind on testing and change course.

At the moment, Scotland's testing rate is below the UK average. In the summer a testing lab was closed even though officials knew the return of schools, colleges and universities was likely to lead to a spike in cases.

When it comes to testing, we're still heavily reliant on a largely privatised UK wide scheme that only testing people with symptoms.

There have been transmission chains started by people with no symptoms, which is why some universities in England are testing asymptomatic students, but we're still only providing tests for people who fall unwell.

There is a much bigger role for NHS Scotland to play in mass testing, to compliment the creaking private system we have in place at the moment.

Throughout this crisis the World Health Organization have maintained a mantra of "test, test, test" – the risks of ignoring that professional wisdom are significant.

At the time of writing Forth Valley College only has two cases, both on the Falkirk rather than Alloa campus, but a wider outbreak is all but inevitable if our testing regime keeps lagging.

The same is true at Stirling University. While testing is available on campus there it's still only offered to symptomatic students, so the risk of undetected asymptomatic transmission remains dangerously high.

We've already seen outbreaks related to schools throughout the Forth Valley and while the contact tracers in those cases work diligently their efforts need to work in tandem with a more robust testing scheme for the whole country.

It's clear that a return to our normal lives remains some distance off, no one can say with absolute certainty when a vaccine will be available.

While we wait for the scientists to do their work in that regard our testing regime needs a big boost of we are to avoid ever tightening restrictions or mass infection.

None of this though should undermine the key public health messages and everyone should continue to follow the guidance. It is an incredibly difficult time for all of us, but the rules do ultimately help to save lives.