New Scottish COVID-19 Restrictions 07/10/2020

[packermac]

Can we have less of this nationalistic nonsense, please? I consider the closure of the Anglo-Scottish border under any circumstances to be completely unacceptable.

Why?

 

[Journeyman]

Then you own this mess, someone who ranks constitutional symbolism above public health, can hardly complain about nationalistic nonsense - unionism is British Nationalism by another name.

Right, I'm not going to going to give that a response. It doesn't deserve one.

 

[DB]

Then you own this mess, someone who ranks constitutional symbolism above public health, can hardly complain about nationalistic nonsense - unionism is British Nationalism by another name.

Talk about completely missing the point...

You seem to be one of the decreasing number who believes that this virus can be eliminated by suppressing it. Ever-fewer believe this (even Sturgeon seems to be rowing back on this).

And the England-Scotland border is porous and it would be practically impossible to prevent people travelling across it.

 

[trebor79]

Summarised as:
1. Here's a load of stats
2. We think schools/universities are at the root of the problem
3. But we're going to shut pubs because that might work

Seriously?

This needs reporting as a scandal in the Press. If schools and universities are the problem, and it seems clear to me that they are, then we need to look at those and how we can make them not be a problem.

But is it actually problem if lots of students have covid? It's actually a good thing surely, as they are at practically zero risk themselves and unlikely to come into contact with any grannies for a few weeks. It's all building up a reservoir of immune people.
I think the penny may have dropped in Westminster that now is not the time to panic about Nottingham etc, some of the local authorities are now also making the point that restrictions need to be more hyper-local - both to avoid unecessary economic damage and to more effectively contain these very localised outbreaks.
There should be no great panic about young people becoming infected with COVID - they are the very people we want to become infected ASAP.

 

[island]

Summarised as:
1. Here's a load of stats
2. We think schools/universities are at the root of the problem
3. But we're going to shut pubs because that might work

Or
1. Something must be done.
2. Closing pubs is something.
3. Therefore we must do it.

 

[duncanp]

Right, I'm not going to going to give that a response. It doesn't deserve one.

I wonder why some people in Scotland are trying to blame England/the UK government for the increase in cases in Scotland?

Surely it can't be so that they can peddle the line "..if we were an independent country, we could close the border" and thereby shift the blame away from their handling of the situation.

 

[haggishunter]

Not only did unrestricted travel blow up for Scotland, it provided a double whammy for the North of England where you had big visitor influxes to parts of the region, added on top was the through road traffic to Scotland which simply has to stop for breaks. The more people mix from wider areas the more spreading potential there is.

Across the whole UK reopening Uni campuses and halls was sheer idiocy and all four governments collectively own that **** up.

 

[Journeyman]

I wonder why some people in Scotland are trying to blame England/the UK government for the increase in cases in Scotland?

Surely it can't be so that they can peddle the line "..if we were an independent country, we could close the border" and thereby shift the blame away from their handling of the situation.

There's plenty of Scottish nationalists who treat the English as convenient bogeymen every time something goes wrong in Scotland, rather than admitting that the SNP regularly make stupid politically motivated decisions, designed purely to increase support for independence.

As an Englishman who lives in Scotland, and holds opinions based on pragmatism rather than patriotism, I find this attitude deeply offensive.

 

[duncanp]

Not only did unrestricted travel blow up for Scotland, it provided a double whammy for the North of England where you had big visitor influxes to parts of the region, added on top was the through road traffic to Scotland which simply has to stop for breaks. The more people mix from wider areas the more spreading potential there is.

Across the whole UK reopening Uni campuses and halls was sheer idiocy and all four governments collectively own that **** up.

But Cornwall and Devon had large numbers of visitors during the summer, due in part to the restrictions on travelling abroad.

And yet infection rates in these two counties were comparatively low during July and August.

The only significant increase in infection rates in Devon is in Exeter, which has a university.

If you don't open university campuses and halls, then what is the alternative strategy?

Move all teaching online (not practical in some subjects) or close universities completely for a whole year?

We have to learn to live with this virus, which means keeping places such as schools, universities and hospitality open, whilst having a sensible set of restrictions that aim to suppress the number and severity of infections, without trying to eliminate infections completely.

The (UK) governments policy was not to avoid a second peak of the virus, but to avoid a second peak which overwhelms the NHS.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Oct 2020 ==

There's plenty of Scottish nationalists who treat the English as convenient bogeymen every time something goes wrong in Scotland, rather than admitting that the SNP regularly make stupid politically motivated decisions, designed purely to increase support for independence.

As an Englishman who lives in Scotland, and holds opinions based on pragmatism rather than patriotism, I find this attitude deeply offensive.

As an Englishman who used to live in Scotland, I know that this is the case. (that the SNP treat the English as scapegoats for everything that goes wrong)

 

[Smidster]

This package of measures seems to be right up there in terms of having maximum economic damage for minimum gain.

It seems that Sturgeon lost her nerve here - At the beginning she had a very clear game plan and while you might not agree with any particular action you could see how it fit with the plan. If she had gone for a full lockdown then I would have vehemently disagreed it would at least be a clear decision with a clear outcome in mind (and I agree that in the aftermath she would have had to somehow close the English border) while all this seems to be doing is untold damage to both society and the economy with no real sense it will have much impact on prevalence.

Or perhaps mandating "Wearing masks in office corridors" will be the magic bullet we have all missed for the past 7 months

 

[duncanp]

Or perhaps mandating "Wearing masks in office corridors" will be the magic bullet we have all missed for the past 7 months

Yes of course that's the solution we've been looking for.

And with all those people working from home, it's bound to have a huge impact on infection rates!

 

[haggishunter]

But Cornwall and Devon had large numbers of visitors during the summer, due in part to the restrictions on travelling abroad.

And yet infection rates in these two counties were comparatively low during July and August.

By the August bank holiday weekend prevalence ratio between Scotland and England had returned to 1, if that had been because England had virtually eliminated the virus too that would have been fantastic, but it wasn’t.

The numbers of infections in Scotland at that point were still ‘comparatively low’, but it was already exponentially growing, trebling every 3 weeks. About the only saving grace here is just how low a base that started from, but that doesn’t buy much time on an exponential growth line. In short the damage was done when cases were in overall numbers still fairly low.

The virus is accelerating more towards the North and West of GB as a whole, simply a reflection of climate and how that impacts spread of respiratory infections because of more indoor time / mixing.

Scotland needs to be in a better place early autumn than SE England to avoid a vastly worse winter outcome. The sacrifices of a longer lockdown to get us to that levels were wasted on the back of making not restricting Scotland -rUK travel a totemic issue. We’re now I fear irrevocably in deep sh!te for winter up here! The festive period is very important for Highland residential hospitality.

 

[greyman42]

These restrictions aren't for everyone to get protected with. It's to make Nicola Sturgeon look good.

I fail to see how it will make her look good.

 

[DB]

I fail to see how it will make her look good.

Possibly she thought it would and has misjudged?

 

[takno]

By the August bank holiday weekend prevalence ratio between Scotland and England had returned to 1, if that had been because England had virtually eliminated the virus too that would have been fantastic, but it wasn’t.

The numbers of infections in Scotland at that point were still ‘comparatively low’, but it was already exponentially growing, trebling every 3 weeks. About the only saving grace here is just how low a base that started from, but that doesn’t buy much time on an exponential growth line. In short the damage was done when cases were in overall numbers still fairly low.

The virus is accelerating more towards the North and West of GB as a whole, simply a reflection of climate and how that impacts spread of respiratory infections because of more indoor time / mixing.

Scotland needs to be in a better place early autumn than SE England to avoid a vastly worse winter outcome. The sacrifices of a longer lockdown to get us to that levels were wasted on the back of making not restricting Scotland -rUK travel a totemic issue. We’re now I fear irrevocably in deep sh!te for winter up here! The festive period is very important for Highland residential hospitality.

All pretty desperate it has to be said. A mix of pretty doubtful stats, massaged half to death, and mangled onto a timeline they don't fit. If Scottish politics carries on like this through the winter then you're welcome to what's left of the economy come spring - I'll be off to saner climes.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Not only did unrestricted travel blow up for Scotland, it provided a double whammy for the North of England where you had big visitor influxes to parts of the region, added on top was the through road traffic to Scotland which simply has to stop for breaks. The more people mix from wider areas the more spreading potential there is.

This is, to be blunt, nonsense. People stopping for a wee at the motorway services are not going into the places where there is a high number of cases - go look at the map and see.

 

[duncanp]

The sacrifices of a longer lockdown to get us to that levels were wasted on the back of making not restricting Scotland -rUK travel a totemic issue.

Of course, if there had been a ban on travel between Scotland and the rest of the UK, it would have prevented people from travelling by train from Glasgow to London after taking a COVID-19 test, and then travelling by train from London to Glasgow after receiving a positive test result.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Of course, if there had been a ban on travel between Scotland and the rest of the UK, it would have prevented people from travelling by train from Glasgow to London after taking a COVID-19 test, and then travelling by train from London to Glasgow after receiving a positive test result.

Which of course was already banned (in England at least - in Scotland self-isolation is not law, however she was in England when she tested positive and therefore English law applies).

 

[kristiang85]

Yes of course that's the solution we've been looking for.

And with all those people working from home, it's bound to have a huge impact on infection rates!

Sssh or you'll give them the idea of telling us to mask up in our homes.

 

[bramling]

I’ll tell you how it worked out and why, on the day Scotland opened tourism on 15th July with no travel restrictions the virus prevalence ratio between Scotland and England had reached an all time high of 9.5x higher in England.

As the Green Leader stated a NZ scenario was in our grasp, Scotland should have opened up internally with no non essential travel in or out. Not restricting travel between the UKs Home Nations got us back to this point because HM Govt opened up in England to early, too far and too fast.

As a consequence of HM Govt and in particular the Scottish Tories being more interested in constitutional politicking than doing what was needed for public health, the whole UK is in the mire again.

NZ is where Scotland could have been now. You can have full opening in areas of low prevalence / elimination or you can have limited opening with unrestricted travel between areas of vastly differing prevalence. You can’t have both full opening of local services and unrestricted travel, or you gradually return all areas to the prevalence of the worst.

It’s all very well attempting to blame it on England, however sooner or later this position would have arisen as the small matter of millions of people losing their jobs would have eventually become too much to bear - especially for a part of the UK with a heavy reliance on tourism and less self-ability to fund measures like furlough.

Not only did unrestricted travel blow up for Scotland, it provided a double whammy for the North of England where you had big visitor influxes to parts of the region, added on top was the through road traffic to Scotland which simply has to stop for breaks. The more people mix from wider areas the more spreading potential there is.

Across the whole UK reopening Uni campuses and halls was sheer idiocy and all four governments collectively own that **** up.

If we were ever going to go for an elimination strategy it should have been GB wide, and perhaps a separate bubble for NI and ROI.

Even that would cause upset - as no doubt some people in NI would have been unhappy, and at my work we have a load of people who commute from the two Irelands to/from London (madness IMO, but people do it).

It *is* regrettable that the four constituents haven’t worked together, and I think *all* the politicians are to blame for that. Out of the three GB countries we’ve seen three strategies (if you could call it that!) and essentially all three countries now seem to be in a pretty similar position.

It’s hard to pin outbreaks in places like Merthyr on English people, whilst ironically London at least seems to be doing okay, despite the bleating coming from Khan who seems to just want his share of the action, which seems to be more about him enjoying the authoritarianism of mandating masks rather than anything useful.

It does seem that we need to quickly learn why London is doing reasonably okay. It‘a certainly unlikely to be Khan’s beloved masks, as compliance in London is patchy at best.

 

[island]

It does seem that we need to quickly learn why London is doing reasonably okay. It‘a certainly unlikely to be Khan’s beloved masks, as compliance in London is patchy at best.

My guess – which is merely that – is that London public transport and offices continue to have massively reduced footfall compared to pre-Covid, and people are more anti-social so there is less going out or going to other people’s homes.

 

[geoffk]

My guess – which is merely that – is that London public transport and offices continue to have massively reduced footfall compared to pre-Covid, and people are more anti-social so there is less going out or going to other people’s homes.

Surely the fact that people are still using the Underground, albeit in smaller numbers, would increase the risk of infection, not reduce it.

 

[bramling]

Surely the fact that people are still using the Underground, albeit in smaller numbers, would increase the risk of infection, not reduce it.

Depends - the Underground is still quiet by normal standards, and whilst loadings have picked up there isn’t the crush loading that was common pre March. Likewise for those who are using trains in the London area one is more likely to be on a long train, perhaps 8, 10 or 12 carriages. By contrast in other parts of the country one might be on something like a 2-car DMU.

But all this is a little academic as we don’t really know how much transport contributes.

 

[haggishunter]

It does seem that we need to quickly learn why London is doing reasonably okay. It‘a certainly unlikely to be Khan’s beloved masks, as compliance in London is patchy at best.

A couple of factors are likely to be a higher proportion of jobs compatible with WFH and simply a climate that is more conducive to outdoor socialising and hospitality than most of the British Isles.

Ultimately for those asking for hard evidence on infection sources, unless youdoing full genome sequencing on every +ve case it doesn’t directly exist! All that can be done is gather evidence of where people have been and when and draw informed inferences from the available data.

What does appear clear is that if one member of a household gets it, it’s virtually impossible to avoid most if not all the household getting it. That coupled with pre symptomatic spreading makes household mixing the biggest spreading risk.

So ultimately there will be many parts of economic activity that are responsible for a few % of total cases - but all the few %s total 100!

However if Scotland carried on as is, the current trajectory has us worse than the spring peak by the end of the month and potentially worse than the UK as a whole was in April by the start of meteorological winter.

That simply is not a tenable course of action. My main point of disagreement with today’s SG announcement is that if you stop short of lockdown and a stay at home message, you need some level of managed licensed hospitality or you risk a counter productive rise in people breaching the no household mixing at home rule. Central belt licensed hospitality with the capacity to operate outdoors should have been allowed to continue operating.

 

[Chester1]

It’s all very well attempting to blame it on England, however sooner or later this position would have arisen as the small matter of millions of people losing their jobs would have eventually become too much to bear - especially for a part of the UK with a heavy reliance on tourism and less self-ability to fund measures like furlough.



If we were ever going to go for an elimination strategy it should have been GB wide, and perhaps a separate bubble for NI and ROI.

Even that would cause upset - as no doubt some people in NI would have been unhappy, and at my work we have a load of people who commute from the two Irelands to/from London (madness IMO, but people do it).

It *is* regrettable that the four constituents haven’t worked together, and I think *all* the politicians are to blame for that. Out of the three GB countries we’ve seen three strategies (if you could call it that!) and essentially all three countries now seem to be in a pretty similar position.

It’s hard to pin outbreaks in places like Merthyr on English people, whilst ironically London at least seems to be doing okay, despite the bleating coming from Khan who seems to just want his share of the action, which seems to be more about him enjoying the authoritarianism of mandating masks rather than anything useful.

It does seem that we need to quickly learn why London is doing reasonably okay. It‘a certainly unlikely to be Khan’s beloved masks, as compliance in London is patchy at best.

My favourite stat about the UK is that 86% of the population is England. There is a delusion amongst Celtic nationalists that Scotland, Wales and a United Ireland will each be individually an equal to England. Scotland would be equal to England in the sense that Canada is equal to the USA (their population ratio is 1:10 like Scotland : England). If Scotland was independent they couldn't have afforded to close the border fully, nationalists would still be blaming England but it would be easier for us to ignore them. GB (but not NI) arrivals have had to quarantine entering Republic of Ireland since the spring and they have a similar case rate to UK.

Choosing to end the measures on the 25th October indicates the SNP plans to attack the replacement of the furlough scheme a week later. Scotland has borrowing powers and income tax is fully devolved. If they want top up the new scheme with their own resources they can but SNP track record (on austerity) indicates they will never raise income tax by more than a token amount.

 

[adc82140]

Let's turn the tables for a second. I spent a week in Scotland in August. I live in the south west of England. Cases here were extremely low, and continue to be. Therefore I took an enormous personal risk by going to the infection hotspot that is Scotland, just to help prop up the tourist industry there

 

[bramling]

Let's turn the tables for a second. I spent a week in Scotland in August. I live in the south west of England. Cases here were extremely low, and continue to be. Therefore I took an enormous personal risk by going to the infection hotspot that is Scotland, just to help prop up the tourist industry there

Quite so. There’s been an unpleasant tendency through this, which I thought had thankfully died down now, for people to blame people from other areas. As usual the government did nothing to try and calm this.

 

[haggishunter]

Choosing to end the measures on the 25th October indicates the SNP plans to attack the replacement of the furlough scheme a week later. Scotland has borrowing powers and income tax is fully devolved. If they want top up the new scheme with their own resources they can but SNP track record (on austerity) indicates they will never raise income tax by more than a token amount.

The date marks the final end of the overlapping period of Scottish October school holidays, which in many areas (though not all) are for two weeks duration. The Scottish Government does not have borrowing powers as in the right to borrow what it needs/wants from where it likes/can get it, like HM Government has. It has a very limited ability to borrow forwards from HM Treasury only, for capital projects. It can not go to the markets or the Bank of England and borrow for so called 'revenue spending'. In other words the SG budget is for all meaningful purposes fixed to whatever Barnet Consequentials flow from policy / spending decisions of HM Government in England.

Income Tax is not fully devolved, what started out as the Scottish Variable Rate gave the SP the power to vary the rates of individual bands by 3p in the £, without going into full details the Scotland Act update of 2016 reduces the UK Basic Rate in Scotland by 10p, the SP then sets a rate on top of the UK rate. Funds don't accrue to the Scottish Government, all income tax accrues to HM Treasury through HMRC, changes to the Scottish rates or bands have a complicated set of effects on the size of the subsequent block grant (and arguably are more pro-rata than true reflection of fiscal consequences - which amounts to a fiscal trap that is bad for accountability).

Further the Scottish Rate of Income Tax applies only to PAYE, it does not apply to investment incomes and dividend payments (which puts a lot of of director incomes predominantly in scope of UK rates) or self employed income.

Even if the income tax under scope of the Scottish tax rates accrued directly to the SG as paid (which as noted above they don't), you simply can not fund furlough for PAYE workers through PAYE taxes in real time - that should be beyond stating the bloody obvious!

 

[DB]

However if Scotland carried on as is, the current trajectory has us worse than the spring peak by the end of the month and potentially worse than the UK as a whole was in April by the start of meteorological winter.

Some sweeping assumptions there! The fact is, none of the countries which have seen spikes in infections identified (which will to an extent be a result of more testing) have seen hospitalisation levels of anything like back in in April. And that is really all that matters - because if people aren't getting ill enough to end up in hospital, it's not a serious enough issue to need restrictions.

 

[Chester1]

The date marks the final end of the overlapping period of Scottish October school holidays, which in many areas (though not all) are for two weeks duration. The Scottish Government does not have borrowing powers as in the right to borrow what it needs/wants from where it likes/can get it, like HM Government has. It has a very limited ability to borrow forwards from HM Treasury only, for capital projects. It can not go to the markets or the Bank of England and borrow for so called 'revenue spending'. In other words the SG budget is for all meaningful purposes fixed to whatever Barnet Consequentials flow from policy / spending decisions of HM Government in England.

Income Tax is not fully devolved, what started out as the Scottish Variable Rate gave the SP the power to vary the rates of individual bands by 3p in the £, without going into full details the Scotland Act update of 2016 reduces the UK Basic Rate in Scotland by 10p, the SP then sets a rate on top of the UK rate. Funds don't accrue to the Scottish Government, all income tax accrues to HM Treasury through HMRC, changes to the Scottish rates or bands have a complicated set of effects on the size of the subsequent block grant (and arguably are more pro-rata than true reflection of fiscal consequences - which amounts to a fiscal trap that is bad for accountability).

Further the Scottish Rate of Income Tax applies only to PAYE, it does not apply to investment incomes and dividend payments (which puts a lot of of director incomes predominantly in scope of UK rates) or self employed income.

Even if the income tax under scope of the Scottish tax rates accrued directly to the SG as paid (which as noted above they don't), you simply can not fund furlough for PAYE workers through PAYE taxes in real time - that should be beyond stating the bloody obvious!

In the context of SNP position on UK debt (that Scotland will only take a share if the SNP gets pretty much all that it wants), I would support proper borrowing powers and more tax powers for Scotland. The UK government could be limited to borrowing for English, Welsh and Northern Irish spending only. Eventually all debt would be rolled over into 3 nation or Scottish debt. If the current borrowing was not funded by quantitative easing then rUK could have ended up picking up the pandemic tab for Scotland in the event of Scottish independence.

Scotland could use the income tax powers it currently has to fund pandemic stimulus if it had an overdraft facility from the Bank of England like the Treasury has. Its not that simple, but the "Ways & Means Facility" is essentially a £20bn overdraft for short term spending. BoE could lend Scottish government money if it agreed to raise income tax from April 2022 to pay it back.

One way or another a mechanism should be able to be agreed that allows Scotland to borrow money to support businesses to sustain tougher pandemic restrictions. I think it will be wasted money but as long as my taxes aren't funding it then I don't care.