When will Scotland return to some sort of normal?

[Scotrail12]

I'm getting increasingly worried about the situation here in Scotland. Our leader seems to operate under the guise of wanting to protect everyone but in reality, she's power hungry and loving every minute of this. What she seems to want is a second wave so that she can be proven right. She's showing no interest in releasing any meaningful restrictions bar meeting family outdoors and seems to now want to make it illegal to travel more than 5 miles from home.

I worry for mental health and also for the economy. Will we ever get back to some sort of normal here? I would hate if the rest of the year is written off and the economy totally obliterated all to serve her own political goal. She doesn't seem to know why she's been given ears - in her mind, she's the only person that's right.

It's really affecting me and my family - I'm at uni and the possibility of having to do that online is really stressing me out not to mention that I'll be missing out on my youth and best years. My dad is a dentist and can't do anything so is now making a huge loss.

 

[Huntergreed]

I wouldn’t say I agree that she wants a second wave, but I do agree with everything else you’ve said. The fact she’s going out of her way to say that “my decisions are not political” almost immediately suggests that they are.

I find Sturgeon’s approach to the easing of lockdown very very brutal. In the last month my region has had no more than 20 new cases, and yet we’re stuck in a strict 5 mile lockdown with no end in sight. I think the problem is that she wants to be seen as the one who’s taken the right decision when compare to the UK government in terms of suppressing the virus, but I don’t think she’s fully realised the extent of the damage this is causing to mental health, and the economy.

I like you am at university and I’m starting to feel like my young and best years are being sacrificed to protect the minority, especially with such a painfully slow easing of lockdown as outlined in her exit strategy. I do particularly feel for those who are missing out on any graduation ceremony this year.

She must be deluded however to think that locking everyone within a 5 mile radius of their home is a reasonable measure to take at this stage, and unless she changes she’s going to kill the tourism, hospitality and transport industries to the point where many people might not come back anymore.

As for whether she will adapt to a more sensible and mature approach, only time will tell, I dearly hope so, but I’m not optimistic. If England have been allowed to travel anywhere and this is proved to not have a huge effect on the R rate then she might reconsider but I still can’t say I’m hopeful.

 

[route101]

I wouldn’t say I agree that she wants a second wave, but I do agree with everything else you’ve said. The fact she’s going out of her way to say that “my decisions are not political” almost immediately suggests that they are.

I find Sturgeon’s approach to the easing of lockdown very very brutal. In the last month my region has had no more than 20 new cases, and yet we’re stuck in a strict 5 mile lockdown with no end in sight. I think the problem is that she wants to be seen as the one who’s taken the right decision when compare to the UK government in terms of suppressing the virus, but I don’t think she’s fully realised the extent of the damage this is causing to mental health, and the economy.

I like you am at university and I’m starting to feel like my young and best years are being sacrificed to protect the minority, especially with such a painfully slow easing of lockdown as outlined in her exit strategy. I do particularly feel for those who are missing out on any graduation ceremony this year.

She must be deluded however to think that locking everyone within a 5 mile radius of their home is a reasonable measure to take at this stage, and unless she changes she’s going to kill the tourism, hospitality and transport industries to the point where many people might not come back anymore.

As for whether she will adapt to a more sensible and mature approach, only time will tell, I dearly hope so, but I’m not optimistic.

Think the 5 mile rule is a guideline,you cant be done for it . Im due to graduate this year. Im a mature student , got offer a place on a grad scheme but not heard anything, so think thats fallen through, emailed them no repsonse .

Im hopeful i will get away on a wee holiday somewhere.

 

[Huntergreed]

Think the 5 mile rule is a guideline,you cant be done for it . Im due to graduate this year. Im a mature student , got offer a place on a grad scheme but not heard anything, so think thats fallen through, emailed them no repsonse .

Im hopeful i will get away on a wee holiday somewhere.

During her conference yesterday she said if people don’t follow it she will make it the law and enforce it so she obviously does deem it as a strict rule rather than just guidance.

I could really do with a holiday for mental health reasons, but I’m not hopeful, according to her route-map the 5 mile rule is until at least August!

 

[theironroad]

Maybe we need to allow history to see who was right, because right now there are plenty down south who think the lockdown has been eased too quickly.

It would have been better for another few weeks of proper lockdown (not that we had a proper ld anywhere in the UK at all) to stamp the transmission out rather than the potential of having to go through the whole thing again.

Your'e clearly no sturgeon fan anyway, but if it eases your mind, police Scotland have already said that changing the law will be unworkable in practice.

I realise your stressed about it, but it's not really going to be the best years of your life as even up to now it's not even 4 months, but sure if online learning is longer term I can understand your hacked off.

 

[theironroad]

During her conference yesterday she said if people don’t follow it she will make it the law and enforce it so she obviously does deem it as a strict rule rather than just guidance.

I could really do with a holiday for mental health reasons, but I’m not hopeful, according to her route-map the 5 mile rule is until at least August!

With the weather cooling a bit, less people will wanting to be out and about in honey pot places like luss and loch Lomond etc that seemed to have inundated at the weekend. A lot of people are off work righ t now and probably trying to make the most of it befor they have to go back to work. I can't imagine everyone will be off work until the furlough scheme ends at the end of October.

 

[route101]

During her conference yesterday she said if people don’t follow it she will make it the law and enforce it so she obviously does deem it as a strict rule rather than just guidance.

I could really do with a holiday for mental health reasons, but I’m not hopeful, according to her route-map the 5 mile rule is until at least August!

Yeah same here , one hope is things get a lot better , the virus dies away and the five mile rule is don away . Wishful thinking

 

[Bletchleyite]

Is the farmer/landowner lobby in Scotland strong? I have the impression that that is the reason why Wales have not allowed unlimited travel for exercise.

 

[leightonbd]

I think the FM has put herself in a bit of a bind here, or alternatively is being very cute.

To date the ‘staged’ exit from lockdown signals only very limited movement even in July, with greater freedom in August.

However:
- start of July is traditionally holiday time in Scotland (trades weeks, schools break up); yet
- 11 August (a week early) is being signalled as a back to school week

Result: many people have no chance of a holiday. That won’t play well. There will also be strong lobbying from the leisure/ tourist industries to allow travel.

Outcome: either mass guideline breach (some of which is already happening) or a propitious bring-forward of the August phase to, say, week 2 of July to allow a holiday window of 3-4 weeks. Cue praise for the FM for brilliant footwork in managing the pandemic.

The other driver of that outcome, quite simply, is that Rishi holds the purse strings and what he says on the furlough will go. There won’t be extra money to fund a longer lockdown. Movement and furlough will go hand in hand. (On a slightly different timescale, I think).

FWIW I would rather have the current Scottish easing than the English version, which I do think is a bit hasty.

On the wider point: she is playing politics, of course she is, but so is Boris.

 

[Esker-pades]

To answer the OP's question: We don't know. Nobody in any country with any government knows.

As for the accusations of "power hungry Sturgeon only doing things to stick it to Westminster": The UK government lifted lockdown very early* in comparison to other countries. Scotland started to lift restrictions closer to the point that other countries did*. Sturgeon seems to be much more in line with the rest of the world than Westminster & Boris Johnson.

Sturgeon is also not the only leader of a devolved government to deviate from Johnson's advice. Wales and Northern Ireland have different rules. Greater London wants to.


*Not by time, but by infection & death rates.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't believe it will be possible for there to be a summer holiday season this year in England or Scotland. It will cause many times the issues beach day-tripping already is.

TBH I'd give serious thought to bringing the schools back early (in England too), and having a lengthened October half term, perhaps 2-3 weeks, to that end.

 

[oldman]

From the BBC. Not sure what was culpable and reckless (a convenient catch-all common law offence) - going hill-walking or needing rescued. Looks like creative policing to me.

Two people broke lockdown restrictions by travelling more than 60 miles (96km) from Glasgow to climb a mountain near Crianlarich, say police.

The 27-year-old man and 23-year-old woman had to be rescued after getting into difficulty on Beinn A' Chroin on Saturday afternoon.

Killin Mountain Rescue Team was called out to help them.

Police Scotland said a man and a woman had been charged in connection with culpable and reckless conduct.

Lockdown restrictions have been eased in Scotland, but people have been asked to travel no further than about five miles for exercise.

Police said the two people had "not been suitably equipped" for the climb. Beinn A' Chroin rises to 942m (3,090ft).

 

[philosopher]

Maybe we need to allow history to see who was right, because right now there are plenty down south who think the lockdown has been eased too quickly.

It would have been better for another few weeks of proper lockdown (not that we had a proper ld anywhere in the UK at all) to stamp the transmission out rather than the potential of having to go through the whole thing again.

I might be wrong here, but I do think the Scottish government receives most or perhaps all its money from the UK treasury based on a set formula. So the Scottish government can afford to be more cautious in easing the lockdown as it is not going to lose money from a cautious approach. For the UK government, the more that is left closed, the less tax revenue the UK treasury receives and the more it has spend on furloughed workers, hence the quicker pace of lockdown easing.

This I think is why Scotland has been slow in easing the lockdown when compared to England. I reckon if Scotland was financially independent it would have been easing the lockdown quicker.

 

[snookertam]

I might be wrong here, but I do think the Scottish government receives most or perhaps all its money from the UK treasury based on a set formula. So the Scottish government can afford to be more cautious in easing the lockdown as it is not going to lose money from a cautious approach. For the UK government, the more that is left closed, the less tax revenue the UK treasury receives and the more it has spend on furloughed workers, hence the quicker pace of lockdown easing.

This I think is why Scotland has been slow in easing the lockdown when compared to England. I reckon if Scotland was financially independent it would have been easing the lockdown quicker.

Quite saddened to see posts like this. As it happens the Scottish Parliament has some tax raising powers, but the idea that this is all based on a financial equation is wide of the mark IMO. It would be far worse to raise the lockdown here too quickly, have a spike in cases, then have to impose lockdown again. Adherence to a new lockdown would likely be less than previously and more lives would be lost unnecessarily.

The aim as far as I'm aware is to gradually release lockdown based on what the R value is. Every time lockdown is relaxed more there is more risk introduced into society of the virus being passed around and when that happens the country will need the health and tracing infrastructure to contain it. Doing so too early will mean it may go out of control again.

I'm more comfortable with the idea we could be too cautious than too cavalier though.

 

[Mag_seven]

Can we stick to the question posed in the opening post please which is "when will Scotland return to some sort of normal?".

thank you

 

[scotrail158713]

Is “hopefully soon” too vague an answer?
In all seriousness, I have no idea and I’m not going to try and guess. However I do feel sorry for the school children who’s summer holiday is being cut a week short. Where I am they were due to get 7 weeks holiday - it only occurs around every 7/8 years - and go back on the 19th, but that’s obviously not happening. They’ll maybe be desperate to go back to school by then though, so who knows. As everyone says “these are unprecedented times”.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Is “hopefully soon” too vague an answer?
In all seriousness, I have no idea and I’m not going to try and guess. However I do feel sorry for the school children who’s summer holiday is being cut a week short. Where I am they were due to get 7 weeks holiday - it only occurs around every 7/8 years - and go back on the 19th, but that’s obviously not happening. They’ll maybe be desperate to go back to school by then though, so who knows. As everyone says “these are unprecedented times”.

Er, they've effectively had several months of holiday!

 

[Butts]

In answer to your question some things have returned to normal.

Those of us in Scotland who have worked through the whole lockdown including riding empty trains and traversing empty streets have had a whale of a time.

The joke at the moment is the "stay at homers" emerging from their isolation some of who are petrified of their own shadow.

During the crisis I have been to England twice to stay overnight and will be going again this Weekend.

No one has asked to see my Key Worker paperwork during any domestic or cross border journeys.

 

[Domh245]

Er, they've effectively had several months of holiday!

Not really. They've been at home for several months but they have still been attempting to learn online (with varying degrees of success) and definitely haven't had any sort of normal 'holiday' activities - certainly not what I'd call holiday!

 

[Huntergreed]

Not really. They've been at home for several months but they have still been attempting to learn online (with varying degrees of success) and definitely haven't had any sort of normal 'holiday' activities - certainly not what I'd call holiday!

Arguably prolonging the holiday would actually be negative, as they:

Won’t be able to travel anywhere beyond 5 miles

won’t be able to see family beyond 5 miles.

certainly can’t “go on holiday” unless they want to visit their own town, and stay in their own house, because of the 5 mile restriction.

getting them back at least gives them something to do.

I would argue the 5 mile restriction has got to go for wellbeing and practicality reasons

 

[Carlisle]

Scotland started to lift restrictions closer to the point that other countries did*.

What countries are your referring to? Most of Europe is well ahead of us in re opening to the new normal & some didn’t impose driving distance restrictions during their lockdowns anyway

 

[Huntergreed]

What countries are your referring to? Most of Europe is well ahead of us in re opening to the new normal & some didn’t impose driving distance restrictions during their lockdowns anyway

Or if they did, they were far more reasonable than 5 miles, which I could walk in an hour.

 

[Yew]

To answer the OP's question: We don't know. Nobody in any country with any government knows.

As for the accusations of "power hungry Sturgeon only doing things to stick it to Westminster": The UK government lifted lockdown very early* in comparison to other countries. Scotland started to lift restrictions closer to the point that other countries did*. Sturgeon seems to be much more in line with the rest of the world than Westminster & Boris Johnson.

Sturgeon is also not the only leader of a devolved government to deviate from Johnson's advice. Wales and Northern Ireland have different rules. Greater London wants to.


*Not by time, but by infection & death rates.

It's worth remembering that currently, around 50% of deaths are in care homes, and transmission in this setting seems unrelated to transmission in the general population.

 

[Esker-pades]

What countries are your referring to? Most of Europe is well ahead of us in re opening to the new normal & some didn’t impose driving distance restrictions during their lockdowns anyway

It appears you haven't read the asterisk.

I'll take current forum favourite, France.

Re-Opening:
It first started lifting restrictions on the 11th of May. At that point, the increase in deaths from the start of the month was ~2000. This toll was increasing by ~1% per day (between 0.27 and 1.3) and had been doing so for a fortnight.
The UK first started lifting restrictions on the same date (with a lot of confusion). However, we had seen an increase in the death toll of ~4500 and it was increasing by over 1.5% per day (between 0.85 and 2.4).
This is where my asterisk comes in. Although both countries started lifting restrictions at about the same time, the UK was behind France in terms of the progression of fighting the virus. Our rates of death and infection were higher. We're just now getting to the point where our death and infection rate is where it was for France when they started to lift some restrictions.

The reason most of Europe is well ahead of us in re-opening is that they were well ahead of us in their initial response. They've managed to control the virus. We appear to be getting there, but we weren't 3 weeks ago.

Driving Distances:
In France, part of the first stage of lifting lockdown was removing the need for people to have travel permits to explain why they have left home.

Elsewhere, the Spanish authorities banned people moving between provinces; Italy banned people from going beyond a "close proximity of one's residence" (I can't find an exact number, but ~1km appears to have been the accepted definition of "close").

It's worth remembering that currently, around 50% of deaths are in care homes, and transmission in this setting seems unrelated to transmission in the general population.

I am aware of this.

 

[Belperpete]

The reason most of Europe is well ahead of us in re-opening is that they were well ahead of us in their initial response. They've managed to control the virus. We appear to be getting there, but we weren't 3 weeks ago.

We are paying a heavy price for being late to lockdown. As has been widely reported, that week late in locking-down led to a massive increase in the number of people infected. As we can see from the graphs, the numbers infected rise exponentially in a dramatic way, but fall off only slowly. So it is going to take a lot longer than a week to recover the lost ground. Currently, we are the "sick man of Europe", with worse infection rates than even Spain, who at one time looked a basket case.

When you look at the graphs, while the numbers in places that had high infection rates (such as London and the Midlands) have fallen dramatically, those in Scotland and Wales and other places with few infections are barely falling. I suspect that what is happening is that the numbers in places like London and the Midlands are levelling-off at about the same rates as those regions with few cases - a rate that is being maintained by asymptomatic carriers. These will only be eliminated when track and trace is properly up and running. Again, we are going to pay a heavy price for being late to get track and trace up and running properly.

Assuming track and trace is up and running properly in the next week or two, and give it another month or so to have finally stamped out asymptomatic transmission, then we might start to see a return to normality sometime in August. We certainly need to before the start of the new school year, or we will have very big problems.

 

[xc170]

Scotland and Wales both need to act much quicker than they are if they want any sort of economy left.

Sturgeon is power hungry.

 

[Belperpete]

Scotland and Wales both need to act much quicker than they are if they want any sort of economy left.

It is England that is trying to lift the lockdown too early, and risking all our economies by doing so.

We have three choices:

1) we stamp the virus out, and we then return to normal life. Inevitably there will still be the occasional flare-up, but with effective track-and-trace, we stamp them out quickly. This is what the asian countries did with SARS (for which there is still no vaccine), and just about every other country in the world is now doing with this virus. Unfortunately we were late to lockdown, and are now playing catch-up.

2) we accept that the virus continues to run at a controlled rate until it runs itself out. In practice, we have only just got the virus under control, so the measures needed to keep it under control would be only marginally less restrictive than those in place now. We would be locked into this semi-lockdown state for probably a year, during which time our economy would be totally destroyed. We would also be treated as a pariah state by just about every other country in the world - even Spain has said it won't re-open borders with us with our current rate of infections.

3) we let the virus run out of control. The NHS would be overwhelmed, and we would be treated as a pariah state by just about every other country in the world. Our tourism and restaurant industries would be destroyed, along with all their associated businesses, and our status as an international trade and travel hub. International investors would desert us, and our economy would collapse.

 

[GusB]

The "within five miles" is a guideline and not a hard and fast rule, as has already been explained in this thread. For the avoidance of doubt:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/c...ap-through-out-crisis-phase-1-update/pages/3/

Getting around
Consistent with the reopening of workplaces set out in this phase, where home working is not possible businesses and organisations are encouraged to manage travel demand through staggered start times and flexible working patterns.

Permitted to travel short distances for outdoor leisure and exercise but advice to stay within a short distance of your local community (broadly within 5 miles) and travel by walk, wheel and cycle where possible.

International border health measures are introduced

Obviously the need for people to go further than five miles has been taken into consideration, and is the reason why it hasn't been made mandatory.

 

[Carlisle]

Or if they did, they were far more reasonable than 5 miles, which I could walk in an hour.

True, as others have said on around May 11th France replaced full lockdown with an 100 k distance limit which I understand was lifted yesterday

 

[Huntergreed]

The "within five miles" is a guideline and not a hard and fast rule, as has already been explained in this thread. For the avoidance of doubt:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/c...ap-through-out-crisis-phase-1-update/pages/3/



Obviously the need for people to go further than five miles has been taken into consideration, and is the reason why it hasn't been made mandatory.

In her briefing though, Sturgeon mentioned that she’s noticed people travelling further and that if they continue to do so she will make it the law, so it’s clear that they consider this to be a very strict rule rather than just guidance.