Fifty days of lockdown: how Scotland has endured restrictions
“Stay at home. Only go outside for essential food, health and work reasons. Stay two metres away from other people.”
These were the instructions issued by the Scottish Government just 50 days ago – on 23 March – a set of rules which First Minister Nicola Sturgeon described as “difficult and unprecendented” for the nation.
Indeed, the restrictions were like nothing Scotland had ever seen before in peacetime. Movement was severely curbed; people were allowed to leave their homes for exercise just once a day and were banned from travelling, bar for essential journeys. Food shopping became a headache as panic buying left supermarket shelves bare and shoppers queued behind socially-distanced markings even to be allowed to enter a store.
However, watching the experience of other nations in Europe, the restrictions did notcomeasasurprisetomany. Italy had already enforced a stringent lockdown, followed quickly by France and Spain. Deaths from Covid-19 were soaring across Europe, which was quickly becoming what the World Health Organisation described as the “epicentre” of the virus, having moved away from China, where it first began, reportedly in a wild animal market in the city of Wuhan.
By the time of the lockdown, in Scotland at least, the figures were not yet too alarming. The first case of community transmission of the virus north of the Border had only been reported on 11 March – less than two weeks earlier – with the first death having sadly occurred two days later. Yet everyone knew it was only a matter of time.
Looking south, London was already beginning to struggle. Cases there were rocketing, yet the UK government initially seemed reticent to take drastic steps which would hit the economy. There had been talk of a “herd immunity” strategy, which would see the virus essentially left to its own devices, until enough people had produced antibodies that it would die out.
In Scotland, by the time the lockdown took effect, Ms Sturgeon had already closed schools, with the last children leaving their classrooms the previous Friday – for what many suspected would be the last time this academic year. Mass gatherings of more than 500 people had already been banned north of the Border, either inside or outside. Across the UK, bars, restaurants, gyms and other social venues had been ordered to close before the weekend.
Announcing the lockdown, Ms Sturgeon said: “Let me be blunt. The stringent restrictions on our normal day to day lives that I’m about to set out are difficult and they are unprecedented. They amount effectively to what has been described as a lockdown.”
For the first time, all of the UK’S mobile networks sent out
“Let me be blunt. The stringent restrictions on our normal day to day lives that I’m about to set out are difficult and they are unprecedented”
agovernmenttextalert,ordering people to stay at home.
Just over a week later, on 2 April, the world passed a grim milestone. Over one million people globally had been infected by the virus, according to researchers from Johns Hopkins University in the US. Since then, the figure has risen to more than four million.
In a rare move on 5 April, the Queen made a broadcast to the UK and the wider Commonwealth, something she has done on only four previous occasions, to thank people for following the government’s social distancing rules. In the speech, she paid tribute to key workers, and said the
UK “will succeed” in its fight against coronavirus but may have “more still to endure”.
The same day, the Scottish Government suffered a major blow. Dr Catherine Calderwood, Scotland’s chief medical officer, who had been praised for her straightforward manner when addressing Holyrood’s daily media briefings, had been pictured visiting her holiday home in Fife – around an hour’s drive from her home in Edinburgh’s West End.
It emerged, in a briefing later that day that she had done so not once, but twice, taking her family with her. At first, it seemed as if she would escape with little more than public humiliation and an apology. However, just hours later, her resignation was announced, stating that in discussions with Ms Sturgeon, it had been agreed that the “justifiable focus” on her actions risked creating distractions from the response to the virus.
A month later, the UK government would suffer a similar embarrassment when it emerged that Professor Neil Ferguson, whose advice led the government to implement the lockdown restrictions, resigned from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies after a newspaper reported that a woman named as his “married lover” visited his
NICOLA STURGEON