Sturgeon's Legacy - Covid
"In fact, as every locked-down schoolboy knows, the Scottish government’s handling was certainly no better than the UK’s and, in many respects, worse.
"The decanting of untested elderly patients from hospital wards to care homes that turned into mortuaries was a national scandal, as admitted by the health secretary at the time, Jeane Freeman."
Sturgeon’s Covid legacy is a broken NHS and a mental health crisis
Those using the Covid Day of Reflection to praise the former first minister subscribe to SNP myths that she handled the pandemic better than Boris Johnson
In fact, as every locked-down schoolboy knows, the Scottish government’s handling was certainly no better than the UK’s and, in many respects, worse. The decanting of untested elderly patients from hospital wards to care homes that turned into mortuaries was a national scandal, as admitted by the health secretary at the time, Jeane Freeman.
She told the Covid inquiry last year that she would “regret for the rest of my life” the catalogue of care home deaths. Though, to be fair, Ms Freeman was really only following the advice of the bureaucrats at NHS Scotland, who, in their panic, lost any sense of their duty of care to the elderly. How many old people died alone and in distress, denied even the consolation of having their loved ones visit them because of draconian lockdown rules, is something that should be remembered today.
And spare a thought for granny Maureen Hogg from Eaglesham, who was fined for holding a birthday party in her garden for a 70-year-old neighbour. How many people were prosecuted for offences such as gathering on beaches, sitting on park benches, or spending more than one hour a day out of doors, I know not. What I do know is that they should all be given a pardon and compensation. They were doing the right thing — getting fresh air, exercising, and socialising with zero risk to anyone.
As Professor Mark Woolhouse of Edinburgh University told the Covid inquiry last year, Scotland had more severe lockdowns that lasted longer, thus imperilling children denied access to education and social interaction and laying the groundwork for the mental health crisis afflicting young people today.
Of course, the UK government locked down too, but Sturgeon played politics with the policy, claiming that by not locking down harder for longer, Johnson was “endangering lives”. In the final tally, it was level pegging in the mortality stakes. According to the authoritative King’s Fund, 180,000 died of Covid in England and Wales against a proportionate 16,000 in Scotland.
It is worth remembering, too, how Sturgeon promoted the idea of Zero Covid, aping her idol Jacinda Ardern, who claimed prematurely to have stamped out the disease in New Zealand. There was never any prospect of Scotland erecting a prophylactic barrier to this virus. However, that didn’t stop a band of nationalist loons in hazmat suits pitching up at the border in July 2020, intending to send English tourists back home to think again.
If it wasn’t the Scottish government’s finest hour, nor was it Boris Johnson’s. Yet, the UK government did at least set up the Covid Vaccine Taskforce, which managed to create, in 12 months, a vaccine that most science commentators thought would take ten years. There was, of course, Baroness Mone and the PPE fiasco. The UK government fast-tracked millions of pounds’ worth of protective equipment, such as surgical gowns, from companies that just happened to have links to the Tory party. Much of it was useless. Mone denies any wrongdoing.
But, as Professor Woolhouse eloquently explained to the Covid inquiry, the real scandal was lockdown itself. It was, in retrospect, madness to close the schools, the economy, and social interaction. The lockdown led to a long tail of excess deaths from people who were discouraged from seeking treatment from our “world-class” National Health Service.
Nor has NHS Scotland recovered. We banged pots and pans in celebration of their sacrifice, but the NHS is still performing fewer treatments than before the pandemic despite a vast increase in spending. Scotland’s 800,000-strong waiting lists tell their own story.
Indeed, according to the BMA’s chairman for Scotland, Dr Iain Kennedy, the NHS is “broken and cannot survive” in its present form. The crisis may have been many years in the making, but it was the pandemic that pushed our health system over the metaphorical cliff. There has been an 80 per cent increase in Scots going private for elective surgery rather than spending years waiting in pain. The NHS crisis is not unrelated to the staggering increase in people, on sickness benefits. Many have lost any connection with the world of work.
The over-generous furlough scheme, under which people were paid 80 per cent of their salaries to stay at home, cost £350 billion the UK could ill afford. Sturgeon used to be a cheerleader for Universal Basic Income and introduced a trial of it in Scotland. Well, the pandemic involved the biggest test of paying people not to work in history, and it has been a predictable disaster.
To give her credit, the former first minister did conduct her daily Covid briefings with aplomb. She was generally on top of her brief and conveyed a sense of being in charge. Unfortunately, she was in charge of the greatest public health disaster in modern times. There is an understandable reluctance to rake over all this again, but we should not allow the Day of Covid Reflection turn into a Day of Amnesia.
Sturgeon’s Covid legacy is a broken NHS and a mental health crisis
Those using the Covid Day of Reflection to praise the former first minister subscribe to SNP myths that she handled the pandemic better than Boris Johnson
By Iain Macwhirter - The Times
Scottish government buildings were being floodlit in yellow on Sunday night in reflection of those who died in the Covid-19 pandemic, which began five years ago. Unionist critics suspected this was meant to be a subliminal pro-nationalist message, since yellow is the colour of the SNP. But we are assured it is only because the colour is associated with remembrance, hope and solidarity. Tie a yellow ribbon on the old oak tree, etc.
Well, fair enough, though it’s not surprising that some folk are a tad suspicious that John Swinney might use the Day of Reflection to big up the Scottish government’s handling of “The Covid”, as Scots refer to the pandemic. It was widely believed to have been Nicola Sturgeon’s finest hour. Didn’t she keep Scotland safe while the Westminster Tories were “putting profit before people”, as nationalists said on Twitter? She didn’t, of course, but the memory lingers on.
The National Museum of Scotland still seems to subscribe to the Sturgeon myth, as The Sunday Times has reported. Injecting Hope: The Race for a Covid-19 Vaccine features a near lifesize image of St Nicola at one of her Covid briefings alongside a poem read by the actor Robert Carlyle, suggesting that she handled things better than “bumbling” Boris. Apparently, this was because the Scottish government sent out blue vaccination letters instead of white ones. No, I don’t either.
Scottish government buildings were being floodlit in yellow on Sunday night in reflection of those who died in the Covid-19 pandemic, which began five years ago. Unionist critics suspected this was meant to be a subliminal pro-nationalist message, since yellow is the colour of the SNP. But we are assured it is only because the colour is associated with remembrance, hope and solidarity. Tie a yellow ribbon on the old oak tree, etc.
Well, fair enough, though it’s not surprising that some folk are a tad suspicious that John Swinney might use the Day of Reflection to big up the Scottish government’s handling of “The Covid”, as Scots refer to the pandemic. It was widely believed to have been Nicola Sturgeon’s finest hour. Didn’t she keep Scotland safe while the Westminster Tories were “putting profit before people”, as nationalists said on Twitter? She didn’t, of course, but the memory lingers on.
The National Museum of Scotland still seems to subscribe to the Sturgeon myth, as The Sunday Times has reported. Injecting Hope: The Race for a Covid-19 Vaccine features a near lifesize image of St Nicola at one of her Covid briefings alongside a poem read by the actor Robert Carlyle, suggesting that she handled things better than “bumbling” Boris. Apparently, this was because the Scottish government sent out blue vaccination letters instead of white ones. No, I don’t either.
In fact, as every locked-down schoolboy knows, the Scottish government’s handling was certainly no better than the UK’s and, in many respects, worse. The decanting of untested elderly patients from hospital wards to care homes that turned into mortuaries was a national scandal, as admitted by the health secretary at the time, Jeane Freeman.
She told the Covid inquiry last year that she would “regret for the rest of my life” the catalogue of care home deaths. Though, to be fair, Ms Freeman was really only following the advice of the bureaucrats at NHS Scotland, who, in their panic, lost any sense of their duty of care to the elderly. How many old people died alone and in distress, denied even the consolation of having their loved ones visit them because of draconian lockdown rules, is something that should be remembered today.
And spare a thought for granny Maureen Hogg from Eaglesham, who was fined for holding a birthday party in her garden for a 70-year-old neighbour. How many people were prosecuted for offences such as gathering on beaches, sitting on park benches, or spending more than one hour a day out of doors, I know not. What I do know is that they should all be given a pardon and compensation. They were doing the right thing — getting fresh air, exercising, and socialising with zero risk to anyone.
As Professor Mark Woolhouse of Edinburgh University told the Covid inquiry last year, Scotland had more severe lockdowns that lasted longer, thus imperilling children denied access to education and social interaction and laying the groundwork for the mental health crisis afflicting young people today.
Of course, the UK government locked down too, but Sturgeon played politics with the policy, claiming that by not locking down harder for longer, Johnson was “endangering lives”. In the final tally, it was level pegging in the mortality stakes. According to the authoritative King’s Fund, 180,000 died of Covid in England and Wales against a proportionate 16,000 in Scotland.
It is worth remembering, too, how Sturgeon promoted the idea of Zero Covid, aping her idol Jacinda Ardern, who claimed prematurely to have stamped out the disease in New Zealand. There was never any prospect of Scotland erecting a prophylactic barrier to this virus. However, that didn’t stop a band of nationalist loons in hazmat suits pitching up at the border in July 2020, intending to send English tourists back home to think again.
If it wasn’t the Scottish government’s finest hour, nor was it Boris Johnson’s. Yet, the UK government did at least set up the Covid Vaccine Taskforce, which managed to create, in 12 months, a vaccine that most science commentators thought would take ten years. There was, of course, Baroness Mone and the PPE fiasco. The UK government fast-tracked millions of pounds’ worth of protective equipment, such as surgical gowns, from companies that just happened to have links to the Tory party. Much of it was useless. Mone denies any wrongdoing.
But, as Professor Woolhouse eloquently explained to the Covid inquiry, the real scandal was lockdown itself. It was, in retrospect, madness to close the schools, the economy, and social interaction. The lockdown led to a long tail of excess deaths from people who were discouraged from seeking treatment from our “world-class” National Health Service.
Nor has NHS Scotland recovered. We banged pots and pans in celebration of their sacrifice, but the NHS is still performing fewer treatments than before the pandemic despite a vast increase in spending. Scotland’s 800,000-strong waiting lists tell their own story.
Indeed, according to the BMA’s chairman for Scotland, Dr Iain Kennedy, the NHS is “broken and cannot survive” in its present form. The crisis may have been many years in the making, but it was the pandemic that pushed our health system over the metaphorical cliff. There has been an 80 per cent increase in Scots going private for elective surgery rather than spending years waiting in pain. The NHS crisis is not unrelated to the staggering increase in people, on sickness benefits. Many have lost any connection with the world of work.
The over-generous furlough scheme, under which people were paid 80 per cent of their salaries to stay at home, cost £350 billion the UK could ill afford. Sturgeon used to be a cheerleader for Universal Basic Income and introduced a trial of it in Scotland. Well, the pandemic involved the biggest test of paying people not to work in history, and it has been a predictable disaster.
To give her credit, the former first minister did conduct her daily Covid briefings with aplomb. She was generally on top of her brief and conveyed a sense of being in charge. Unfortunately, she was in charge of the greatest public health disaster in modern times. There is an understandable reluctance to rake over all this again, but we should not allow the Day of Covid Reflection turn into a Day of Amnesia.
