When will Scotland return to some sort of normal?

[Butts]

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.

How is she going to make it The Law ?

How will it be enforced and by whom ?

 

[philosopher]

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.

I have seen some articles saying that track and trace will only reduce transmission by 5% to 15%, which does not seem enough to remove most of the restrictions, so I suspect most restrictions will remain after August. I do hope I am wrong though.

 

[Bletchleyite]

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

The 5 mile restriction is nonsensical. If they want to stop people "honeypotting" to e.g. Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, copy the French and make it 100km, which makes your relatively local attractions accessible without everyone flocking to the same place.

 

[leightonbd]

The weather has turned so that may keep a few more people indoors, short term.

My prediction: Iron Lady 2.0 (TM) will, on or around June 15-18 (ie the next announcement) hold out the following combi of stick and carrot:
- restrictions remain till end June
- maybe flex the 5k to 20k immediately
- ‘if all is going to plan’ significant freeing up in early July (ie three weeks later) including no travel restriction, non essential retail, camping and caravan sites (with appropriate arrangements for hygiene), restaurants, cafes and bars open on an outside (garden or take away) basis only
- I can’t see hotels etc being allowed in early July but I may be wrong. Holiday letting would be allowed.
- larger private gatherings outdoors (20-30?) and indoors (6-8)

Hotels and indoor dining then from August

Full 2m distancing ‘wherever possible’.

All of the aboveboard subject to a continued steady decline in numbers.

@Butts - I do agree with the challenge ‘how will she legislate for this, and police it’. This (above) allows her a vaguely graceful climb-down.

@Bletchleyite - on Loch Lomond, it’s more than 5km for 90+% of those visiting anyway (as I suspect you know) - it is just the absolute habitual weekend or sunny day outing for the greater Glasgow population, at least the northern part, so I suspect numbers would be similar regardless. It is just ‘where we always go’ for many people and whilst flexing 5k upwards would be attractive to many in Scotland I doubt it would help the main destinations on Loch Lomond much.

 

[route101]

The weather has turned so that may keep a few more people indoors, short term.

My prediction: Iron Lady 2.0 (TM) will, on or around June 15-18 (ie the next announcement) hold out the following combi of stick and carrot:
- restrictions remain till end June
- maybe flex the 5k to 20k immediately
- ‘if all is going to plan’ significant freeing up in early July (ie three weeks later) including no travel restriction, non essential retail, camping and caravan sites (with appropriate arrangements for hygiene), restaurants, cafes and bars open on an outside (garden or take away) basis only
- I can’t see hotels etc being allowed in early July but I may be wrong. Holiday letting would be allowed.
- larger private gatherings outdoors (20-30?) and indoors (6-8)

Hotels and indoor dining then from August

Full 2m distancing ‘wherever possible’.

All of the aboveboard subject to a continued steady decline in numbers.

@Butts - I do agree with the challenge ‘how will she legislate for this, and police it’. This (above) allows her a vaguely graceful climb-down.

@Bletchleyite - on Loch Lomond, it’s more than 5km for 90+% of those visiting anyway (as I suspect you know) - it is just the absolute habitual weekend or sunny day outing for the greater Glasgow population, at least the northern part, so I suspect numbers would be similar regardless. It is just ‘where we always go’ for many people and whilst flexing 5k upwards would be attractive to many in Scotland I doubt it would help the main destinations on Loch Lomond much.

Surely Hotels would be ok to open , without the sit in restuarant.

 

[Huntergreed]

Surely Hotels would be ok to open , without the sit in restuarant.

I would certainly imagine so. I can see massive economic problems for years to come if the holiday season can’t go ahead this year, and perhaps even a massive reduction in the size of the industry, making future tourism less popular and appealing, causing this to become a much longer term issue.

I appreciate that the risk of the virus must be considered, but if we don’t allow even domestic holidays then it’s going to be very damaging for the economy and mental wellbeing indeed. Tourism and hospitality is the main source of income to many towns and places.

 

[scotrail158713]

How is she going to make it The Law ?

How will it be enforced and by whom ?

Exactly. I’m sure Police Scotland came out and said it would be completely unenforceable.

 

[Huntergreed]

How is she going to make it The Law ?

How will it be enforced and by whom ?

Presumably the same way other countries who imposed a distance limit enforced theirs.

 

[Carlisle]

Presumably the same way other countries who imposed a distance limit enforced theirs.

Yes, I can’t imagine it’d be too difficult for them to deploy a few temporary Police checkpoints around tourism hotspots

 

[Carlisle]

I don't believe it will be possible for there to be a summer holiday season this year in England or Scotland.

News reports suggest Govt has some hope of a summer holiday season of sorts from around mid July in England whereas Scotland Wales & N.I,haven’t set dates so are unknown

 

[ld0595]

From a selfish point of view, I hope the housing market opens soon. I was fortunately in a position to buy a house just before the lockdown and found a perfect house that I'd like to view. Being stuck in a flat with noisy neighbours, no garden and not much room to work from home has made things quite frustrating for me. I know Phase 1 saw the housing market "prepare to open" but I can't see why it cannot open sooner subject to social distancing, masks and handwashing etc. It's not like you'll be in large groups when viewing and moving houses.

 

[Belperpete]

From a selfish point of view, I hope the housing market opens soon. It's not like you'll be in large groups when viewing and moving houses.

Your not in a large group when viewing, but the person selling will have a constant stream of viewers passing through their house. Fior some reason, people seem to want to open cupboards that are not part of the sale.

Moving house should be okay if you do it yourself, but most people use a removal firm. Enforcing any form of social distancing while the removal men work would be next to impossible. And if it involves the removal men in an overnight stay, where would they stay? Even if these factors don't affect you, they will likely affect other people in your chain.

 

[Belperpete]

I have seen some articles saying that track and trace will only reduce transmission by 5% to 15%, which does not seem enough to remove most of the restrictions, so I suspect most restrictions will remain after August. I do hope I am wrong though.

So do I. If we can't restart schools and universities with their full complements of pupils and students in the new school year, we will have big problems. And this effectively means that social distancing has to end by then.

The reports I have seen of countries that have got the numbers of infections down to levels where hotels and restaurants can re-open have all placed great emphasis on the use of track and trace to stamp out the last vestiges of the virus. I do worry that we are launching track and trace while numbers are still quite high, and that there seems to be so little to encourage people to comply.

 

[Belperpete]

Surely Hotels would be ok to open , without the sit in restuarant.

How are you going to socially distance in the corridors, reception and lifts? In the larger chain hotels, if only one family group were allowed in a lift at a time, for example, it would take forever to get to and from your room.

And if there is no sit-in restaurant, where are people going to have breakfast - take it back to your room? It would be cold by the time you had managed to get a lift.

 

[GusB]

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.

Yes, if people continue to take the Mickey it'll get stricter. Therefore it's in all our best interests to stick to the current guidelines and only travel a reasonable distance. Travelling for 60-70 miles to climb a mountain is not reasonable.

"If" is the operative word here. I think the Scottish Government has made its intentions fairly clear through its roadmap. Each phase depends on how successful the previous one is, and any success depends on people respecting the guidelines that have been set out. If we end up with an increase in cases of Covid because a load of people decided to take the High Road during a brief spell of taps aff weather, we'll end up back in lockdown again. And we'll know who to blame.

Oh, and could we please not turn this thread into yet another Nat-bashing exercise. It's getting boring now.

 

[Skymonster]

Surely Hotels would be ok to open , without the sit in restuarant.

I would be somewhat more cautious about staying in a hotel than travelling, even on public transport. Lengthy exposure to all manner of surfaces in a confined room, which it might be impossible to totally cleanse and where there is no link to previous occupants (as far as I can tell track and trace will not help identify cases such as staying in a room where someone who now has covid previously stayed) would have me concerned. i ask myself - if I was entering a hotel room, would I have confidence that every arm of every chair, every surface, every switch, every handle, every hangar in the wardrobes, etc, had been thoroughly cleaned?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Surely Hotels would be ok to open , without the sit in restuarant.

I think the concern with travel is people using local services away from home, and potentially needing to use local hospitals if a COVID case develops while there, which isn't going to happen as much with a day trip because the threshold for "I'm feeling a bit off, shall we go home?" is a bit lower[1]. I otherwise can't see any reason not to reopen hotels and Airbnb subject to enhanced cleaning regimes and room service food only.

With campsites, public toilets have clearly been shown to be possible, or they could take bookings for marked-out pitches with a dedicated polybog. And caravans and camper vans with their own facilities are made for this.

[1] Though a trip to Barnard Castle to test your eyesight is an option I suppose.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I would be somewhat more cautious about staying in a hotel than travelling, even on public transport. Lengthy exposure to all manner of surfaces in a confined room, which it might be impossible to totally cleanse and where there is no link to previous occupants (as far as I can tell track and trace will not help identify cases such as staying in a room where someone who now has covid previously stayed) would have me concerned.

One way to avoid this being a problem would be to allow hotels to reopen only on weekends to start with, with a room only allowed to be occupied by one guest that weekend. Then rooms could be cleaned on the Monday and left wholly untouched for 5 days, which I understand is well beyond the 3 days that the virus can hang around on any surface.

 

[CaptainHaddock]

How are you going to socially distance in the corridors, reception and lifts? In the larger chain hotels, if only one family group were allowed in a lift at a time, for example, it would take forever to get to and from your room.

And if there is no sit-in restaurant, where are people going to have breakfast - take it back to your room? It would be cold by the time you had managed to get a lift.

No need. Social distancing is only really necessary if you're going to be within 2 metres of someone for a period of 15 minutes or more.

 

[Skymonster]

No need. Social distancing is only really necessary if you're going to be within 2 metres of someone for a period of 15 minutes or more.

Oh, if only that message was being more widely spread and communicated...

 

[Bletchleyite]

Oh, if only that message was being more widely spread and communicated...

It's not quite true. There are different levels of risk on proximity and time.

Regarding lifts, up in the lift (one family at a time) and down on the stairs only, unless disabled, is probably the way to go.

 

[Bantamzen]

It's not quite true. There are different levels of risk on proximity and time.

Regarding lifts, up in the lift (one family at a time) and down on the stairs only, unless disabled, is probably the way to go.

What about some sort of, oh I don't know, compulsory reservation system? You could book via an app on your mobile anything up to 5 minutes before you are due to use the lift. Of course you might want to book well in advance for lifts in busy buildings.....

 

[Belperpete]

No need. Social distancing is only really necessary if you're going to be within 2 metres of someone for a period of 15 minutes or more.

But the closer you are, particularly in a confined space such as a lift, the lower the time. Add into that the need to press the touch-sensitive buttons that everyone else is pressing.

 

[joncombe]

One way to avoid this being a problem would be to allow hotels to reopen only on weekends to start with, with a room only allowed to be occupied by one guest that weekend. Then rooms could be cleaned on the Monday and left wholly untouched for 5 days, which I understand is well beyond the 3 days that the virus can hang around on any surface.

How many hotels do you think would bother to open for one night a week?

 

[Bletchleyite]

What about some sort of, oh I don't know, compulsory reservation system? You could book via an app on your mobile anything up to 5 minutes before you are due to use the lift. Of course you might want to book well in advance for lifts in busy buildings.....

 

[Bletchleyite]

How many hotels do you think would bother to open for one night a week?

Most people going away for the weekend will stay two nights, and quite a few hotels insist you pay for Friday and Saturday for any stay on the weekend. Outside of school holidays, these are the nights when hotels in tourist areas are busy - it's easy to get a cheap couple of nights in the Lakes, Peak or wherever midweek, which clearly demonstrates this, and many small B&Bs and the likes might not even bother opening midweek.

Potentially less workable for business hotels in cities, but there isn't going to be considerable business travel any time soon.

 

[Carlisle]

Oh, and could we please not turn this thread into yet another Nat-bashing exercise. .

A sizeable proportion of any countries population would likely question it’s leaders wisdom in shutting almost its entire economy down for around 6 month’s or more regardless of their politics

 

[Cowley]

I must say I’m only 2 away from a full house in now my game of ‘Compulsory Reservation Bingo’.

 

[joncombe]

I would be somewhat more cautious about staying in a hotel than travelling, even on public transport. Lengthy exposure to all manner of surfaces in a confined room, which it might be impossible to totally cleanse and where there is no link to previous occupants (as far as I can tell track and trace will not help identify cases such as staying in a room where someone who now has covid previously stayed) would have me concerned. i ask myself - if I was entering a hotel room, would I have confidence that every arm of every chair, every surface, every switch, every handle, every hangar in the wardrobes, etc, had been thoroughly cleaned?

Hearing Travelodge have just entered a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) today too. So that could be another hotel chain about to disappear - and they have quite a lot of properites in Scotland.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Hearing Travelodge have just entered a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) today too. So that could be another hotel chain about to disappear - and they have quite a lot of properites in Scotland.

They have been flaky for a while, and are generally pretty awful, so I won't miss them. Perhaps someone else could take them over and bring them up to an acceptable standard.

There is a bit more to it, though, reported in the FT for example (link won't work here without a subscription), in that they are allegedly using it as a means of not paying rent.