From Caro; Lockdown 2; Tier 4

                                     

                                                    Scotland Before Lockdown

"Scotland travel ban: You can go abroad but trips to the airport are illegal"*

At 6pm Friday on the 2339^th day of the year – or so it seems Scotland, no sorry our Health Board area, no sorry the area of our local council (tick any that are relevant) will go into some kind of lockdown.

Boris and bits and bobs of England have a 3 tier traffic light system of lockdown. From 'protect the vulnerable but carry on as normal with masks and distancing', to 'lockdown except for essential workers and services'. A week after Boris said that, Nicola went one better with her 5 tier system which goes up to 4. I kid you not. Level zero counts.

So today we’re sailing from tier 3 to tier 4 with most of the central belt. Our local hospital has no free beds in ICU. The new super hospital in Glasgow (known locally as The Death Star) has only 50% of its ICU occupied which is just as well as there is only 56% of the staff attending the work.

                                        

                                                     Scotland during Lockdown

We knew it was coming but this time it seems very wrong, for instance the schools are staying open and the kids are the biggest spreaders of infection. There is no national guidance or governance to help teachers cope and certainly there’s no financial assistance to schools. Teachers are not allowed to wear masks, visors, they are not allowed to hide behind Perspex shields. Some schools are blended learning others have taken the tack of moving pupils around as little as possible. So pupils are sitting doing 2 hours 10 minutes of maths without a break instead of double period, break and then you move on to the next class. I’m treating a lot of teachers at the moment with problems of the right shoulder. It didn’t take me long to figure out these highly dedicated professionals were wiping 30 desks, 30 seats and sometimes 30 books in the five minute gap between classes. Add that up over a week, that’s a lot of stress on the AC joint.

                                          

                                                        SNP educational policy 

The emphasis is on lockdown because the Scottish government’s test and protect is as effective as my dogs ability to solve Cain's Jawbone. So just from a personal perspective, one of our therapists tested positive. As a duty of care we contacted everybody she had treated in the previous 10 days even though she was wearing full PPE. And our clinical hygiene is rigorous. We then had to cancel all her work for the next 10 days and also cancelled the other patients of the therapist who used the room and wait for that therapist to get a test and for the results to come back. Compared to the loss of life, the loss of livelihood and the negative effect of mental health that we are seeing around us every day, the financial cost to us was minimum. But why did it happen? So that therapist got up one morning and felt cold – that was her only symptom. Indeed all the way through that was her only symptom. But she was suspicious so booked a COVID test at Glasgow Airport. 12 hours later it came back positive. While she was sitting in her car waiting to get the test, she got a text message on the 'test and protect' app to tell her that her 9 year old son had been sitting next to a boy in school who had tested positive…..10 days before. It is useless! 

                                                 

To be fair the test and protect did apologise, there had been a huge surge in numbers, but then surely it is their job to cope with a huge surge in numbers!

There was an interesting article which likened Nicola Sturgeon to Donald Trump, it made fascinating reading. Obviously I believe in the union, I believe, as Stan once put it, that brand Scotland is very strong so I don’t really buy into the idea that we’re the poor underdogs who are put upon. Some opinion polls show a swell in nationalist support and that’s because of Boris Johnston and Dominic Cummings. So to take Mr Cummings for a moment he broke the rules during lockdown, he drove up north, he visited family, he drove back down south. The nationalists raged for his resignation. Margaret Ferrier an SNP MP was feeling unwell, had a test, took the train to London, attended parliament then got the news the test was positive. So got the train back to Scotland (5 hours) attended a police meeting etc etc and got found out. She said because of COVID she wasn’t thinking straight (?)

                                                     

The main thrust of the trump article was that in 2014 we had what the SNP promised would be a 'once in a generation' referendum on Scottish Independence and we voted No. Here is a direct tweet from Nicola 

‘as we’re seeing across the atlantic just now, politicians who rage against democracy don’t prevail lets not dignify this rubbish. Instead lets keep making and winning the case for independence. Power does not belong to the politicians – it belongs to the people’. To which someone retorted ‘what part of no for a generation did she not understand’. And even the most hardened nationalists think we have enough difficulties going on without having another vote next year.

Meanwhile I am aware that of the G7 countries in Europe we have the worst performing economy and the highest COVID excess death rate which alters my thinking. But its not fair that the MIE get one side of the picture. So I am going to track down a crime writer who is a SNP supporter, so you get a more balanced picture.....

 Scotland After Lockdown

Caro 

* The airport, on the 'other side of the barrier' is the only place where you can have a drink with yer mates. So the more wiley Scot was buying a really cheap airline ticket, getting drunk at the airport, with no intention of ever getting on the plane, just for a wee night oot.