Sturgeon Talks More Bollix
Scotland's timetable for lifting Covid restrictions has been generally slower slower than the pace set by the the UK government while carefully following the same direction of travel.
But along the way the First Minister and her supporters have been quick to criticise others, particularly UK ministers and their advisers, which she did in February over plans for re-opening schools in England with a bogus claim this would result in Covid figures going 'through the roof'.
Scaremongering nonsense - just like the Scottish Government's ban on having a beer or glass of wine with your meal.
CORONAVIRUS
Covid would surge under PM’s school plan, says Nicola Sturgeon
Scientists fear socialising parents may spread infection
Grace Lee and Grace McKeeman, both five, were among the young children who returned to class on Monday - Photo JANE BARLOW/PA
By Mark McLaughlin - The Times (23 February 2021)
Boris Johnson’s plan to reopen English schools in two weeks “would send coronavirus through the roof” if it was replicated in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon has claimed.
The first minister said that Scotland’s exit from lockdown would not diverge significantly from the prime minister’s plan — but warned that duplicating proposals to open schools to all pupils on March 8 would be foolhardy.
Speaking at her regular coronavirus briefing, Sturgeon said: “I think if we were to do that right now, we would send transmission through the roof again very quickly because of all the interactions. That’s not about fear of transmission inside schools as much as the overall interactions that would spark in the wider population.”
Children aged four to eight returned to schools which will have one-way systems and hand sanitiser stations - Photo JEFF J MITCHELL
Testing centres have detected positive cases in 5.3 per cent of samples over the last fortnight. The World Health Organisation says coronavirus is coming under control when test positivity falls below 5 per cent for two weeks.
Schools in Scotland reopened yesterday for younger primary school pupils up to P3 and older pupils studying for qualifications.
Public health experts will carefully monitor the impact this has on transmission over the next three weeks amid fears parents will use the opportunity for more socialising on the school run. Government advisers are less concerned about spread among pupils than the wider opportunity for transmission from adults mingling outside the school gates.
She added: “We think what we are doing today, a couple weeks earlier than any return in England — but on a very careful, cautious basis — allows us to make the start to that progress. It allows us to assess just what the impact of it will be, and hopefully it means that later in March, not before the 15th but hopefully from then on, we can start to see more children go back to school.
Aria Robertson, six, took the new rules at Inverkip primary seriously - Photo JANE BARLOW/PA
“If we do this in a way that sends the virus out of control again then what we’ll be facing is all schools being shut again, and even the kids we’ve got back today not being in school.”
Sturgeon will outline her own lockdown exit strategy today but has stressed she will be driven by “data and not dates”.
Johnson’s strategy includes provisional dates for allowing outdoor sport to resume by March 29, non-essential retail, hairdressers, beer gardens, gyms, swimming pools and self-catering holidays by April 12, then hotels and a limited return of fans to sports stadiums by May 17.
The Department for Transport is also working towards May 17 for international travel to resume. A review has been commissioned to report back by April 12.
Devi Sridhar, the chairwoman of global public health at Edinburgh University and a member of Nicola Sturgeon’s Covid-19 advisory group, accused the prime minister of spreading more false hope with his suggestion that foreign travel could resume within three months.
She said: “People are going to rush to book holidays only to have to cancel them and lose money.”
Sturgeon said her strategy will be “broadly similar” but not identical. She said: “They are already not identical because we’ve got some kids back in school today which is not the case in England until into March, so we will not be identical but I think there will be broad similarities.
“There is a limit to how much it is sensible to diverge in the circumstances we’re facing in common, but we will make our own judgments about the particular order and the particular timing because the data is not identical in each of the four nations.”
She urged Scots to “be patient”, insisting “we’ve come this far”, and that the vaccine will eventually offer a safe road out of lockdown.
By yesterday morning 1,445,488 people in Scotland had received their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, an increase of 13,546 from the previous day, the first minister confirmed.
Edinburgh University scientists have confirmed that the vaccine has cut hospital admissions among those that have had the jab. However, the number of people in hospital actually rose for the first time in a months — from 1,132 on Sunday to 1,141 yesterday — indicating that the virus is still spreading and continuing to cause serious illness in the unvaccinated.
The number of people in intensive care has stayed at 99 as the number of people entering ICU keeps pace with the number of people leaving each day.
Sturgeon said: “It’s been really, really, horrendously difficult for everybody – some more than others.
“It would really be the wrong thing to do to come this far on suppression after a second national lockdown, and particularly with the vaccination programme going so well, and ease up too quickly and send ourselves back the way.
“Patience is a hard thing for me to expect from people and to ask more of from people, I know that. I hate having to do it, but the more sensible and cautious we are just now, the more sustainable these easings of restrictions will be.
“We will seek to set out tomorrow an indicative order of priority and the likely phasing of firstly the gradual lifting of the current lockdown restrictions and then, in due course, a return to the geographic levels system when we would decide whether all or parts of the country may move out of Level 4 and into Level 3, and of course that’s the part where more parts of the economy will start to open up.”
Boris Johnson’s plan to reopen English schools in two weeks “would send coronavirus through the roof” if it was replicated in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon has claimed.
The first minister said that Scotland’s exit from lockdown would not diverge significantly from the prime minister’s plan — but warned that duplicating proposals to open schools to all pupils on March 8 would be foolhardy.
Speaking at her regular coronavirus briefing, Sturgeon said: “I think if we were to do that right now, we would send transmission through the roof again very quickly because of all the interactions. That’s not about fear of transmission inside schools as much as the overall interactions that would spark in the wider population.”
Children aged four to eight returned to schools which will have one-way systems and hand sanitiser stations - Photo JEFF J MITCHELL
Testing centres have detected positive cases in 5.3 per cent of samples over the last fortnight. The World Health Organisation says coronavirus is coming under control when test positivity falls below 5 per cent for two weeks.
Schools in Scotland reopened yesterday for younger primary school pupils up to P3 and older pupils studying for qualifications.
Public health experts will carefully monitor the impact this has on transmission over the next three weeks amid fears parents will use the opportunity for more socialising on the school run. Government advisers are less concerned about spread among pupils than the wider opportunity for transmission from adults mingling outside the school gates.
She added: “We think what we are doing today, a couple weeks earlier than any return in England — but on a very careful, cautious basis — allows us to make the start to that progress. It allows us to assess just what the impact of it will be, and hopefully it means that later in March, not before the 15th but hopefully from then on, we can start to see more children go back to school.
Aria Robertson, six, took the new rules at Inverkip primary seriously - Photo JANE BARLOW/PA
“If we do this in a way that sends the virus out of control again then what we’ll be facing is all schools being shut again, and even the kids we’ve got back today not being in school.”
Sturgeon will outline her own lockdown exit strategy today but has stressed she will be driven by “data and not dates”.
Johnson’s strategy includes provisional dates for allowing outdoor sport to resume by March 29, non-essential retail, hairdressers, beer gardens, gyms, swimming pools and self-catering holidays by April 12, then hotels and a limited return of fans to sports stadiums by May 17.
The Department for Transport is also working towards May 17 for international travel to resume. A review has been commissioned to report back by April 12.
Devi Sridhar, the chairwoman of global public health at Edinburgh University and a member of Nicola Sturgeon’s Covid-19 advisory group, accused the prime minister of spreading more false hope with his suggestion that foreign travel could resume within three months.
She said: “People are going to rush to book holidays only to have to cancel them and lose money.”
Sturgeon said her strategy will be “broadly similar” but not identical. She said: “They are already not identical because we’ve got some kids back in school today which is not the case in England until into March, so we will not be identical but I think there will be broad similarities.
“There is a limit to how much it is sensible to diverge in the circumstances we’re facing in common, but we will make our own judgments about the particular order and the particular timing because the data is not identical in each of the four nations.”
She urged Scots to “be patient”, insisting “we’ve come this far”, and that the vaccine will eventually offer a safe road out of lockdown.
By yesterday morning 1,445,488 people in Scotland had received their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, an increase of 13,546 from the previous day, the first minister confirmed.
Edinburgh University scientists have confirmed that the vaccine has cut hospital admissions among those that have had the jab. However, the number of people in hospital actually rose for the first time in a months — from 1,132 on Sunday to 1,141 yesterday — indicating that the virus is still spreading and continuing to cause serious illness in the unvaccinated.
The number of people in intensive care has stayed at 99 as the number of people entering ICU keeps pace with the number of people leaving each day.
Sturgeon said: “It’s been really, really, horrendously difficult for everybody – some more than others.
“It would really be the wrong thing to do to come this far on suppression after a second national lockdown, and particularly with the vaccination programme going so well, and ease up too quickly and send ourselves back the way.
“Patience is a hard thing for me to expect from people and to ask more of from people, I know that. I hate having to do it, but the more sensible and cautious we are just now, the more sustainable these easings of restrictions will be.
“We will seek to set out tomorrow an indicative order of priority and the likely phasing of firstly the gradual lifting of the current lockdown restrictions and then, in due course, a return to the geographic levels system when we would decide whether all or parts of the country may move out of Level 4 and into Level 3, and of course that’s the part where more parts of the economy will start to open up.”
Sarah Barr sons Nairn, six, and Ruiari, four, were happy to return - JANE BARLOW/PA
Comeback kids bring parents a little relief
Pupils returned to schools for the first time since December yesterday to find a world of one-way systems, social distancing and hand washing (Daniel Harkins and Lucinda Cameron write).
Children between aged four to eight went back along with some secondary pupils working to qualifications. So did those in early learning and childcare.
Eilidh Hyett, seven, lamented how much she had missed her friends and teachers at Inverkip primary school in Inverclyde.
“When we come into school there’s a hand sanitiser box and we hand sanitise our hands before we go into the class,” she said. “We always stay two metres apart from each other and we don’t really touch each other and we don’t touch each other’s things.”
Sarah Barr dropped off her children Nairn, six, and Ruiari, four. She said she was confident it was safe for pupils to return. “The school has been great at explaining all the safety measures,” she said. “Seeing how happy they are to be back in school it makes a big difference for their mental wellbeing. At that infant age a lot of the learning they do is about their social skills and the benefit of the structure of school and learning as a group of children so they have definitely missed being in the school environment.”
Una Nicolson, head teacher of the school, said she was delighted to have the children back. Staff have been offered the option of getting a coronavirus test twice a week. “We are aware that underneath those smiles today there may be feelings of anxiety,” Nicolson said.
