A SENIOR Scottish Government minister has warned "the way we live our lives" will change due to coronavirus. 

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman says the lives of Glaswegians will be impacted for "a period of time". 

Speaking on Good Morning Scotland, the MSP said the Scottish Government is doing everything it possibly can to deal with the outbreak. 

Coronavirus in Scotland: LIVE updates as Scottish Government warns "lives will change"

“There will be difficulties and all of us, the way we live our lives is going to change for a period of time,” she said.

“People need to think about in what way they can offer additional help to their neighbours or their families, while we try to make sure that professional help that is there … to protect those who are most vulnerable and care for those who become sickest.”

The Health Secretary detailed the measures as she revealed that the UK could shortly see cases of Covid-19 being spread by community transmission – rather than arising from someone having travelled to an area where the disease is prevalent, or having close contact with someone already infected.

“We expect to see shortly cases coming forward that are originating from that community transmission,” Ms Freeman said. 

She said NHS modelling showed that the virus could result in an absence rate of between 25% and 30% among health service workers – and that dealing with infected patients left NHS workers at “greater risk” even with protective equipment.

To help cope with staff shortages, the NHS is now looking at how recently-retired staff can return to work, as well as how those who are almost qualified can help.

Ms Freeman said there are “something like 3,000 available nursing students” as well as year five medical students.

She said that in stepping up they would only be asked to do what they are trained to do and no more.

READ MORE: UK health minister Nadine Dorries tests positive

But she said they could play an “important role” in caring for those who become sick.

The Health Secretary spoke out as she said the authorities are “genuinely doing everything we possibly can to prepare for this”.

She said: “We have active work going on looking at how we can increase the number of beds available in our hospital settings, doubling the number of intensive care units that we have and equipping them and staffing them.”

Explaining how that could happen, she said: “You start to make difficult decisions about NHS care that is critical to life – that would be cancer treatment, transplants, maternity care – from NHS care that is not critical to life. That is some of our elective work, the replacements of knees, hips and so on.

“You start to scale down the non-critical in order to free up the space for the critical.

“That is where you get additional bed space but you also can get additional intensive care space.”

But with as many as 80% of people potentially becoming infected in the worst-case scenario, Ms Freeman said people must be clear “that we will not be able to make this go away”.