We’ll meet again... at long last!
Easing of rules on socialising, sport and work likely in First Minister’s unlockdown plan
‘Concrete steps on the journey to normality’
SCOTS will finally be able to meet with family and friends from outside their own households as Nicola Sturgeon prepares to announce plans to ease the lockdown.
The First Minister is set to publish a ‘route map’ out of lockdown with proposals to relax restrictions – including allowing outdoor work to return and some sports.
Scots will also be allowed to socialise with one person from outside their household – but only out of doors and with social distancing measures remaining in place.
The changes will not, however, come into force immediately.
Many of the measures Miss Sturgeon has outlined are already happening south of the Border.
Miss Sturgeon announced that she will set out her plans on Thursday. It is thought likely that the proposals will included the reopening of garden centres and the phased return of schools. Fishing, tennis and golf are likely to be allowed, and recycling centres set to reopen amid widespread concerns over fly-tipping.
Miss Sturgeon previously made small changes to lockdown by allowing Scots to exercise outdoors more than once a day.
She is expected to move closer to the system now in place in England but will wait until the next official lockdown review on May 28. It is understood that changes will then be implemented from June 1.
Speaking at her daily briefing on the Covid-19 outbreak, Miss Sturgeon said: ‘Within two weeks my hope is that we will be taking some concrete steps on the journey back to normality.
‘As I’ve said before, it won’t be normality as we knew it because the virus will not have gone away, but it will be a journey to a better balance, I hope, than the one we have today.
‘As we take each step we must make sure that the ground beneath us is as solid as possible.
‘That’s why sticking with the lockdown restrictions a bit longer to suppress the virus more is so important, because that will mean we can start to take these steps with confidence that we have alternative means of effectively keeping it under control.’
Despite her announcement, Miss Sturgeon emphasised that current lockdown measures remain in place in Scotland – with people urged to stay at home.
The First Minister has repeatedly said she wants to have a ‘grown up’ conversation with the nation, and will further set out how she hopes the country will emerge from lockdown in the coming months. Boris Johnson last week eased some restrictions in England. As a result, people can meet up with family members outdoors following social distancing measures, sit in parks and have picnics, some sports have returned and the Prime Minister announced that those who cannot work from home can now return to work.
Those living south of the Border are allowed to travel to beaches or beauty spots for exercise. It is not yet clear whether this will be allowed in Scotland.
Although Miss Sturgeon will look to give much of the same advice, she will take a more ‘cautious’ approach.
She said ‘Stay at Home’ guidance will remain in place despite people being allowed out more. Mass gatherings will remain banned and social distancing measures will stay in place.
Any changes to lockdown will take into account the R number – the reproduction rate of the virus – and the findings of the weekly National Records of Scotland report, which includes all deaths in which Covid-19 is suspected as a factor.
Miss Sturgeon has repeatedly said she would like to ease lockdown measures amid concerns over the impact it is having on mental and physical health – with some people delaying seeing their GP or going to hospital if they feel ill. Setting out how she plans to ease lockdown, Miss Sturgeon said a number of changes could be brought in from May 28. This could involve the return of some outdoor sports including golf.
Miss Sturgeon is also looking to allow recycling facilities to reopen and the resumption of some outdoor work. This could include construction sites, although no details have been given on this.
The First Minister will also reveal how a phased return of schools could be implemented. It comes
after Mr Johnson said that primary schools in England could reopen from June 1.
In Northern Ireland, it was yesterday announced that people will now be able to socialise with up to six people at a time from outside their own households.
Churches will be opened for private prayer, while outdoor church services and outdoor cinemas will be allowed to open.
THIS surreal period of half-life is now limping towards its 60th day – a grim milestone. It’s a gloomy stasis that’s strangling the economy to the extent that it’s hard to compute the probable repercussions.
GDP is likely to slump by about a third, and nearly one employed person in four is furloughed. The costs are stratospheric and the economy is on life support – so when will this national paralysis draw to a close?
On Thursday, we’re told, Nicola Sturgeon will announce a route map out of lockdown, with some ‘easements’, though they’re likely to be cautious. The relaxation will begin from May 28: you will be able to sit in a park, have socially distanced meetings with people from outside your household and take part in some outdoor activities.
That’s fine, as far as it goes. We can’t risk a virus flare-up, undoing the huge gains of recent weeks, with an instant restoration of normality. But where is the blueprint for an incremental return to something approaching our pre-lockdown existence?
It’s not the job of government, of course, to encourage false hope – though it’s more than capable of making empty promises. But the contrast with the situation south of the Border couldn’t be more stark.
The First Minister, grousing from the sidelines while maintaining she is avowedly apolitical, has relished pouring scorn on Boris Johnson. The claim is that his reckless unlockdown is marred by poorly worked-out public health messaging that could send transmission rates soaring.
Inertia
And it’s difficult not to agree that the first phase of the Prime Minister’s plan was muddled and a bit vague.
That said, it was always going to be a messy process, and at least he made a start on drawing a line under this weird spell of purgatorial inertia.
In Scotland, we’re stuck in neutral, with the R number – denoting the rate of viral spread – hanging above us as an ever-present threat.
Yet, writing in the Mail on Sunday, retired consultant Dr John Lee, a former professor of pathology, said the R rate was an ‘artificial construct and not even a number we know with any certainty’.
It’s a ‘mysterious number, calculated in ways that we are not privy to’. He said: ‘Many analysts suggest that lockdown is directly causing more deaths than the virus.
‘Even worse, it is becoming increasingly clear that assumptions central to the models that generate R are flawed.’ Most strikingly, he highlighted that ‘the NHS is supposed to be there to look after us, not the other way around’.
I spoke to one NHS source who said Hairmyres Hospital in East Kilbride, Lanarkshire, had an occupancy rate of 44 per cent last week.
While lockdown continues, many are steering clear of hospitals and GP surgeries, putting their own health and indeed lives in jeopardy.
A burgeoning mental health crisis caused by wrecked livelihoods is looming.
Yet the path out of lockdown in Scotland is as elusive as the R number. Science squabbles aside, the nagging doubt remains that Miss Sturgeon’s strategy has been guided by a desire for differentiation for political ends.
Sure, she’s entitled to set her own pace; we can’t pretend devolution doesn’t exist.
But the problem arises when it becomes clear we’re going our own way – and it’s not working. Not a single applicant has been hired for the Contact Tracing Team in Scotland, whose work will prove vital in guiding us out of this quagmire, though the Scottish Government claims 2,000 workers will be ‘ready to be deployed’ on testing and tracing by June 1.
In England, 21,000 contact tracers have been recruited, exceeding a target of 18,000 by next week.
Coronavirus deaths in Scottish care homes are double the ratio in England.
But SNP spinners responded by tweeting that a London School of Economics study found deaths related to Covid-19 in English care homes are likely to be ‘severely underestimated’.
Yet the English statistics, unlike those in Scotland, include all excess deaths in care homes and residents who died in hospital.
And isn’t it a bit rich of the SNP to accuse the Tories of a lack of transparency?
Look at the Nike scandal: the Scottish Government kept us in the dark allegedly for reasons of patient confidentiality, though in the past that was no bar to letting us know about norovirus outbreaks.
Nike held a conference at the Hilton Carlton hotel in Edinburgh at the end of February.
Out of the 70 people who attended, 25 later tested positive for the virus, eight of whom live in Scotland.
Contact tracing appears to have varied between scant and non-existent in those early days – and patently hasn’t improved much since.
Two business owners revealed at the weekend that staff came down with Covid-like symptoms after coming into contact with delegates from the conference.
Propaganda
They said they were not informed of the outbreak and there was no contact with Public Health Scotland warning them of the health threat.
And for all the talk of a distinctly Scottish approach, why didn’t we instigate lockdown, and call off big sporting fixtures, sooner? It was another week before a ban on mass gatherings was imposed.
And before it was announced on Thursday, March 12, 67,000 people had gathered at Murrayfield Stadium the previous Sunday to watch Scotland play France at rugby.
Propaganda wars don’t end in times of calamity, and some of the SNP’s finest minds have been focusing on how coronavirus helps the case for independence.
It’s a shame their efforts aren’t directed towards the here and now rather than crafting imaginary futures with all the credibility of Tolkien novels.
After all, their top team could do with the back-up. Miss Sturgeon’s personal dedication as she provides daily updates on the virus death toll isn’t in doubt.
But what about her Cabinet which, even in the days before lockdown, was a lacklustre cabal?
As Health Secretary, disaster-prone Jeane Freeman should be at the forefront of the coronavirus campaign but there’s not much sign of a steady hand on the tiller, or even a hand on the tiller.
In fact there’s not much sign of a tiller, as we discovered at a shambolic media briefing on Sunday when most journalists were unable to connect remotely.
Here Miss Freeman tried out the latest PR fightback on the Nike controversy, when she suggested those who tested positive had failed to disclose sufficiently detailed information about their movements.
And where is John Swinney, the mastermind of homeschooling – which largely isn’t taking place?
His quango Education Scotland finally got round to producing some attempt at meaningful educational material for parents last week.
In the meantime, thousands of kids, many from deprived homes, have permanently logged out of lessons.
As for plans to rebuild the post-pandemic economy, how many landmark speeches can you remember by Fiona Hyslop and Kate Forbes (nominally in charge of the economy and finance, respectively)?
Me neither, but is it much of a shock that a gaggle of nohopers have failed to live up to admittedly low expectations when we needed them most?
In the meantime, our specially customised Scottish lockdown, mired in cover-up, obfuscation, and incompetence, grinds on.