Just beginning for shadow of Covid

before the end of the 2020-21 year to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon pledging she will move heaven and earth to ensure they are as close as possible to that point by August 11.

On Thursday, Scottish Government adviser Lindsey Watt confirmed the blended learning plans are a “worst case scenario” and that if Covid-19 infection rates can be kept low over the summer “there are high hopes we may return to nearer normal levels of attendance in August”.

It’s a big if. And as Scotland enters phase two of easing the lockdown, the second waves of Covid-19 infections being reported in China and New Zealand – and the resulting tightening of previously loosened restrictions – are a reminder that the path out of this is not going to be in a straight line.

If the reward for waiting a little longer to join the queue for Primark or shed a few inhibitions in a beer garden is allowing children to return to school with as little additional disruption to their lives as possible, I’m happy to hang on and to hope the people making the plans spend the time between now and then more productively than I passed my schoolgirl summers.

The trajectories of this generation’s lives have already been altered by this crisis in ways large and small that may take decades to become apparent. In our haste to get them back on track, it’s essential that we think things through and ensure we don’t cause more harm than good, however honourable our intentions.

Clockwise from top left: Robin Williams as the inspirational teacher John Keating in Dead Poets Society; queues for Primark; social distancing measures for schools; pupils leaving school ahead of lockdown in March; Beijing railway station following new spike in cases; and, inset, Nicola Sturgeon.