Virus irony

In his Perspective column of 10 July, “How did we end up as Europe’s Covid-19 capital?”, Brian Wilson offers some uncomfortable truths. Where politics prevails over the science we get negative outcomes lamenting the UK government’s failure to adopt Scotland’s quarantine laws, with holidaymakers circumventing these through English airports.

Given that last week Scottish

regions accounted for six of the top ten for Covid cases in Europe we have to ask ourselves what else is happening? Mr Wilson’s suggestion to open up further amidst a rise in hospitalisations goes against public health advice in Scotland. Most experts argued for a pause in moving to level 0 with some justification. A key test for opening up has until recently been continued virus suppression, something that was largely achieved this time last year before the government opened up foreign travel, eventually bringing in the delta variant. This caused the most recent spike in cases among younger men. The decision to allow the Euro fan-zone in Glasgow signalled that mixing was fine despite the government knowing that the variant was more transmissible when less than half were fully vaccinated. The irony is that economies in East Asia and Oceania have largely been open for a year now, never needing the draconian measures that caused our economy to be the worst hit in the G7. All this was achieved by a combination of effective track and trace, sanctioned quarantine and restricted international travel. If the UK governments had learned from these countries we would have been out of lockdown months ago.

Instead we have the prospect of importation of new variants, potentially moving us back into lockdown. As Brian Wilson states, all the good work comes undone particularly when politics prevails over science.

NEIL ANDERSON

Edinburgh