I THINK we have an answer to the question I posed last week: how many deaths is too many? It seems to be something over 100 a day. Hence the screech of brakes from Boris Johnson, faced with the prospect of that number of fatalities by mid-August if Covid cases rise, as expected, to 50,000-100,000 a day. In bad years, flu kills over 300 a day so we may be masking up every winter.
Mr Johnson executed what we in the business called a “reverse ferret” and turned Freedom Day, July 19, into Face mask Day, desperately urging people to continue observing the restrictions he had told them only a week previously were going to be lifted to liberate the animal spirits of the nation. The Prime Minister called for “extreme caution ... constant vigilance ... wear your masks”. And for god's sake don't party like it's Euro 2020, even though you just have.
But he didn't make mask-wearing mandatory. Nicola Sturgeon saw an open goal, and didn't miss. Now is not the time to be acting “irresponsibly” she told a reconvened parliament yesterday. “My job is not to chase good headlines,” she said, to wry amusement amongst MSPs. Her job is to act “safely, responsibly and sensibly”, unlike the madman in charge in Westminster, and the two gentlemen of Corona, Messrs Whitty and Vallance, who have clearly taken leave of their senses.
Read more: The callous calculus: how many Covid deaths is too many?
The headmistress will insist on everyone in Scotland wearing masks on pain of prosecution even after Monday when Scotland moves to level zero. Not that anyone seems to know what level zero is any more. Work from home was supposed to end at this level, but not any more. Nice for those who can. Physical distancing will remain, sort of. Eight people from four households can gather indoors at home, plus 10 in a pub. Fifteen people from 15 households can meet outdoors, though 200 are allowed at weddings and 2,000 at stadium events. Got that? You will be tested.
Yesterday's exercise was really all about masks and distancing herself from Mr Johnson. People still seem to be wearing them in indoor spaces in Scotland, and there has been little sign that the public are desperate to ditch masks yet. Anyway, even in England it is not a free for all. The legal responsibility has been sneakily handed to firms to ensure safety of their staff. Airlines have already said they will continue to mandate mask-wearing.
This is a pernicious and unpredictable disease. Last year at this time, Ms Sturgeon was talking about “eliminating” coronavirus in Scotland altogether and goons at the border were shouting at English tourists to go home. Yet we have just seen Scotland record the highest Covid hotspots in Europe. Cases are expected to rise faster this summer than during January's winter peak
The Delta Variant is taking Europe by storm. the Netherlands has seen a seven-fold increase in cases, forcing the Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, to deliver a grovelling public apology for relaxing restrictions too early. France and Spain are spiking fast, and Portugal has restored curfews. No wonder Mr Johnson is panicking.
Read more: Niall Ferguson calls Covid-19 a 'grey rhino'
So it is worth reflecting, for a moment, what life would have been like had we not had the miracle vaccines. We'd be looking at, not 100 or so, but 1,000 deaths a day – and this in August when coronaviruses are supposed to go on holiday. We'd be facing another lockdown: effective house arrest at the height of summer, watching grim news bulletins announcing the rising daily death toll.
As it is, clinical advisers are warning that we may still be under restrictions come spring 2022. This is why the UK Health Secretary, Sajid Javid, keeps asking: “If not now; when?”. What he means is that if we don't lift restrictions in summer, when the sun is shining and the NHS is unburdened, we may not be able to open up for another nine months.
Moreover, if we suppress the infections now, he says, we might just be creating a worse wave in winter. This is a new variant of herd immunity theory: that once 70 per cent of the population is vaccinated, or infected, natural immunity starts to kick in. That is, if it does. Covid-19 does not always behave the way it should.
Ms Sturgeon managed to weather the recent Scottish spike, just as she has been given the benefit of the doubt over testing, which is still lamentably poor here, and the waning vaccination rate. She slapped down Labour's Anas Sarwar for daring to suggest that her Government might share any responsibility for these shortcomings. Opposition parties are furious that the FM has got away with presenting her administration as more competent and more ethical, when it hasn't been. They say it is because she has been allowed to monopolise the airwaves and has been given patsy treatment by the media.
But the opposition parties, Labour especially, really only have themselves to blame for not challenging the way she has politicised the pandemic. Nicola Sturgeon's approach has been a masterpiece of confusion marketing. By adding levels of complexity to the various stages of lockdown she has made her announcements the focus of media attention rather than the UK's. She has insisted on having different messages: not irresponsible “Hands, Face, Space” but cautious “FACTS”, even though hardly anyone remembers what that acronym stands for.
Moreover, the Scottish Government needn't concern itself over-much with the economy, especially the leisure economy, because business doesn't have much influence in Holyrood, despite all those unrecorded lobbying events which The Herald has been exposing this week. Economic performance in Scotland doesn't directly translate into any reduction in Scotland's stipend, the Barnett Formula. The First Minister can, and assuredly will, blame London for any post-Covid economic downturn.
But she also knows that Scottish voters don't like lockdown any more than English ones, so she has to be cautious not to overplay the safety-first message. Indeed, with cases apparently plateauing now in Scotland, she needs space to argue that she has beaten the third wave before England has. Hence her carefully leaving the prospect of a fuller lifting of restrictions on August 9. That will no doubt be called Scotland's Freedom Day.
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