How This Chinese Family of 4 Completely Transformed Themselves
The feel of coronavirus has altered the face of Scotland.
Equally we rang in the new year and heralded a new decade, with the sense of renewal and optimism that brings for and so many, nobody could have imagined what was simply effectually the corner.
Covid-19's impact on people's lives, livelihoods, liberties and relationships has already been devastating.
Increasingly, attention is turning to regime handling of this crunch in its early days in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland, with recent polling suggesting a figure of two-thirds and rising do not believe ministers acted quickly enough.
With more than 3.2m cases of coronavirus confirmed worldwide, and approaching a quarter of a million deaths, any recriminations may keep until the immediate crunch is over.
In Scotland, like in and then many countries, politics, guild and the economy have been upended – with implications for everything from our businesses, to our mental wellness, to how government operates.
STV News spoke to half a dozen experts – including a former chief medical officer for Scotland – most what we've gone through and where we become next.
On January 24, 100 days ago, two important things happened.
The Earth Health Organisation confirmed – as many scientists at this point already believed – that a new, alarming strain of coronavirus originating in Wuhan, Mainland china, was able to exist transmitted on a human-to-human basis.
In Scotland that solar day, the first tests of the virus Covid-nineteen came back, with two people who had recently travelled back from Wuhan given the all-clear.
January 24 also saw the first meetings of the United kingdom-level national emergencies committee, COBRA. Scotland'southward health secretarial assistant Jeane Freeman, in Inverness visiting NHS Highland, had to abruptly curtail the trip to travel south.
Simply at that phase, Scotland'south and so-chief medical officer (CMO) Dr Catherine Calderwood said the chance to the public from Covid-19 was "low", although the country could see cases "at some stage".
By the kickoff of May, Scotland would have carried out around 75,000 coronavirus tests, with near 12,000 people testing positive for the disease.
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Of all of Dr Calderwood'southward CMO predecessors, Professor Sir Harry Burns was the longest-serving, appointed to the office nether Labour commencement minister Jack McConnell in 2005 and staying in post until 2014.
Now professor of public health at Strathclyde Academy, through his medical connections he became enlightened "quite early on" of only how serious the virus could be.
Intensive care colleagues in London, in early Feb, told him of the "very, very worrying" initial cases they were seeing, and the disturbing questions that arose with them: "Would they accept sufficient chapters? Would they accept sufficient wherewithal to protect themselves from infection?"
"Whatsoever organism that spreads like this did and kills so many people is not an ordinary organism," he said.
That concluding week of January, the minds of politicians and commentators were elsewhere: the UK's departure from the European Spousal relationship. Brexit was to finally, formally happen on January 31, albeit with an 11-month transition period.
In Remain-voting Scotland, as Brexit solar day approached, a poll found 51% of Scots backed independence.
Scottish Parliament backs holding indyref2 this year Read now 
On January 29, MSPs backed the principle of belongings a 2nd independence referendum by the finish of the year – upping the stakes in Nicola Sturgeon and Boris Johnson'southward constitutional stand-off over the right to hold a vote.
The same day, the First Government minister chaired the first meeting of the Scottish Government Resilience Commission (SGoRR) concerning the coronavirus outbreak – Scotland'due south equivalent to COBRA – while COBRA met over again too.
Also that day, the Uk confirmed the first cases of Covid-19: ii Chinese nationals in York.
Sturgeon and Johnson, both leaders resurgent after hugely successful general ballot campaigns, were nearly to see their political agendas completely derailed past a virus that didn't care nearly political party or constitutional politics and had no notion of borders.
The question of complacency
Prof Burns' experience of SGoRR as chief medical officer came during the H1N1 swine flu outbreak of 2009, while Nicola Sturgeon was serving every bit health secretary. He recalls it well.
"You felt y'all were all in this together, you were all trying to find the answers," he said.
"The sense of teamwork was very positive and very encouraging and knowing that same affair would exist happening now in the Scottish Government was reassuring to me."
Swine flu was declared a pandemic past the Globe Health Arrangement (WHO) just equally Covid-19 has been. But it's a matter of scale: H1N1 killed 66 people in Scotland, not thousands.
"Yous come upwards against something like this which has such international dimensions – it was far less and then with swine flu," explained Prof Burns.
"The international dimensions hateful that the Great britain Regime, because they command the borders then on, is going to make much of the running.
"I'm not sure I would have felt and so positive this fourth dimension, because I got the sense the UK Government were a flake slow.
"I suspect the Scots and maybe the Welsh and Northern Irish as well were on the instance a bit earlier than when the Britain Authorities turned its mind to this."
To his mind, at that place was complacency in the corridors of power in Westminster, partly informed by by outbreaks of other coronaviruses like SARS (severe astute respiratory syndrome) and MERS (Middle E respiratory syndrome): strange diseases of which just a tiny number of cases sprung up in the UK.
"The initial things we saw suggested to me that down south they were thinking, 'well, this is something in the far east and it will stay in the far east and it's not going to practise all of this stuff to us'," the former CMO said.
"And there was some history that showed that had happened, or that view would have been correct, if what was happening in the past was happening now.
"But I but don't think they got to grips with the reality of the situation fast enough."
That's non the view of an academic with feel of strategic crisis planning in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland cabinet office.
"This situation is more than than a black swan – this is what a friend of mine would call a black elephant."
Dr Mils Hills
Dr Mils Hills, associate professor of risk, resilience and corporate security at Northampton Academy, says the United kingdom Regime has long classed pandemic influenza and a new pandemic disease as among the height risks to the state.
He said warnings about Covid-19 would have come in "very early to central authorities through intelligence and global health organisation monitoring".
Past January three, UK wellness secretarial assistant Matt Hancock was aware of the issue of Covid-19, and in the coming days he spoke to wellness department officials and the Prime number Minister about it.
The authorities's scientific advisory groups began to meet in mid-Jan, and Hancock instituted daily meetings with officials about the developing outbreak.
"I think it is unfair to criticise plans and planners when the characteristics of this novel coronavirus are unprecedented," Dr Hills said.
"Non since the polio outbreaks in the mid-20th century has there, for instance, been a surge in requirement for a medical technology – and strangely, a kind of similar one."
He added: "Coronavirus is in a way a fleck like a natural disaster at full ferocity affecting an area that has previously not been so struck.
"We ready for farthermost weather in the United kingdom, but we don't plan for a typhoon that you would make it a tropical zone.
"This situation is more than a black swan – this is what a friend of mine would call a black elephant. Unknowable and unmitigable."
And while the warning bells may have been ringing, for the Britain at least, February was the at-home before the storm.
Cases continued to spring upwardly in Europe, with countries such equally French republic, Germany, Espana and Sweden all reporting coronavirus had reached their shores from early January to mid-February.
On Valentine'south Solar day, the outset decease from Covid-xix in Europe took place in Paris: a visiting elderly Chinese tourist.
Meanwhile in Scotland, no cases had withal been reported, although the Starting time Minister, wellness secretary and CMO repeatedly warned coronavirus patients here were inevitable.
Much of the public's attention was fixed on the terrible weather brought by Storm Ciara and Tempest Dennis, which pummelled the country on sequent weekends during the start one-half of February, bringing loftier winds, flooding and transport disruption.
However SGoRR meetings on Covid-19 were still taking place through February, the First Government minister chairing all but one of them, a single meeting chaired instead by deputy start minister John Swinney.
What advice would Prof Burns have been giving the politicians? "I think I would have been pushing early on for testing… I would have been trying very hard early to get the classic public health response to an infection, which is find out who's got it and isolate them before they can spread it."
Of course, that was indeed government policy for many weeks: the problems would come when suspected cases began to outstrip capacity.
In the early days of the crisis, Strathclyde Academy helped out by offering chemical reagents for testing to health boards, Prof Burns said – merely the issues effectually why the U.k. could not or did not rapidly build testing chapters are more deep-seated than that.
"Britain used to have one of the biggest chemical industries," Prof Burns said.
"ICI (Majestic Chemical Industries, in one case the largest manufacturer in the UK) was sold off years agone to a Dutch visitor and suddenly when we need reagents and we need stuff to do testing, nosotros accept to rely on China.
"At that place'southward been a hollowing-out of our supply bondage."
The Italian experience
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If there was any remaining complacency virtually the virus, perspectives began to modify quickly on February 22: that was the twenty-four hours Italian republic confirmed 76 cases of coronavirus, predominantly in its north, and the state'southward outset two deaths.
Past the start of March, cases had spread to every region of Italy. By March iv, fatalities had reached triple figures; by March 12, they exceeded one thousand.
What Scottish ministers and officials had been warning of throughout February finally came to laissez passer: on March 1, the first case of Covid-19 was announced in Scotland – a man in the Tayside surface area.
In the final days of February, cases had already been confirmed in Wales, Northern Ireland and the Ireland, while in England, a man in Surrey became the first Great britain case to catch the illness in the customs.
On March 2, Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon attended their first COBRA meetings in relation to the developing public health crisis. In recent weeks, their absence until so, missing five previous sessions from that get-go on January 24, sparked a political backfire played out in the UK and Scottish Sunday papers.
Scottish Labour MSP Neil Findlay accused the Offset Minister of "negligence", while the Prime number Minister was defendant of displaying "an almost nonchalant attitude" to Covid-19.
"I don't call back those are off-white criticisms," said Prof Burns.
"This should be most the scientific discipline. The science predicts what'due south likely to happen, and then the politicians can come in and say we think the response to that is ten, y or z.
"Just to begin with, these groups are there not to worry near the politics of this just just to determine, what's the problem and what does science tell us near the way to set up that problem?"
On this, Dr Hills agrees. "No one needs signalling from the PM that the consequence is being taken seriously by having him in COBRA or any other folk similar the Scottish FM there.
"Theatrics really aren't part of the system – I really do mean it when I say that politics are set to one side.
"It would almost exist a failure of the system if the PM was attending all or many of these meetings. Delegation to a lead minister makes way more sense in terms of efficiency and effectiveness."
Although speaking of nonchalance, the next day Johnson revealed at a Downing Street press briefing he had visited a hospital with coronavirus patients where he "shook hands with everybody".
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A "four-nation" action program to tackle coronavirus was unveiled by the UK and devolved governments, with the country as one entering the "containment stage" of the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland's strategy, the beginning of four.
At a conference in the Scottish Government headquarters of St Andrew's House – a backdrop that would get increasingly familiar on the news – Dr Calderwood soberly and shockingly said officials were working on the supposition equally many every bit 80% of the population could end upwardly communicable the virus.
From constitutional stand-off to cooperation and coordinated activity in a affair of weeks: it was clear things had fundamentally changed.
There remain question marks over just how much input the devolved administrations had on the approach set out on March ii.
Equally The Guardian reported, the Prime Government minister's key adviser Dominic Cummings had been sitting in on meetings of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) since February, a group crucial to informing the UK's response.
Yet CMOs and primary scientific advisers from the devolved administrations could merely listen in on the meetings every bit observers and could not enquire questions, instead having to submit them in writing beforehand.
Devolved health ministers and officials did nourish and give their opinions in COBR sub-commission meetings.
But Prof Burns said: "I don't think it was a four-nation arroyo – they (the Great britain Authorities) did all the talking."
"And having the Prime Minister's special adviser there (at SAGE meetings) is puzzling. If, as they said at the get-go, it'south all virtually the science, what'due south Cummings doing there?"
Dr Hills said it would take been "weird" for the Prime Minister not to take had eyes and ears in the crucial SAGE meetings.
"I have heard simply good things about the penetrating questions that Cummings asks and how he is very open to doing things differently fifty-fifty if that does put people's noses out of joint," he added.
"At that place have probably not been many occasions where bully ideas from SAGE could so speedily get converted into actions.
"Whether this has involved dictation to the devolved administrations, I am not sure.
"The situation sure seems better than the Us federal vs state governor battles which have demonstrably cost lives."
Aileen McHarg, professor of public law and man rights at Durham Academy, a specialist in devolution, suggests the issue may accept been one common to inter-governmental work within the Britain.
"One of the unsatisfactory features of devolution is how informal the systems for inter-governmental working have been, correct from the first, and how dominated they have been by the Britain Government," she said.
"The Great britain Government gets to really dictate the extent to which it volition share information and share decision-making with the devolved governments, and if it doesn't want to, they can't forcefulness it to.
"That doesn't mean it tin dictate how the powers are to be exercised.
"Just I guess if y'all're not in the room when things are being discussed, or you're not being able to influence those decisions, yous might discover yourself in the position of non actually having much pick well-nigh how y'all exercise those powers."
'Filibuster phase' begins
March saw the steady drumbeat of ascent cases. By March 5, Scotland had vi cases, there were 115 in the UK in full, and the first death was reported: a women in her 70s at a hospital in Reading.
Over the side by side seven days, Scottish cases increased ten-fold to 60, including the first instance of transmission inside the community: someone who didn't catch the virus abroad or from someone who had been abroad.
Already, health officials feared the true number of infections beyond Britain could be anything from 5000 to ten,000.
CMOs in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland raised the risk of Covid-xix to the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland from moderate to loftier. It was time to escalate the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland strategy to the next phase.
The initial steps of the second "delay phase" saw councils asked to suspend whatever planned overseas school trips, and over-70s brash not go on cruises.
The new stage also brought what would come to be i of the virtually controversial aspects of the UK arroyo: the decision to abandon the policy of 'exam, trace and isolate' for all suspected cases.
Instead, anyone with symptoms was asked to stay at habitation for seven days, and only contact the NHS if their condition deteriorated or did non better after the week of self-isolation.
The Scottish Regime "should take continued" a policy of mass "examination, trace and isolate" even if it had meant deviating from the 4-nation strategy, Prof Burns said.
"It might accept been a very applied thing, and that would explain why the Scottish Government did it every bit well, if yous simply don't take the kits, considering it's a complicated test," he added.
"You accept cells from someone's mouth or pharynx or whatsoever, and yous have to extract the RNA of the virus and measure miniscule amounts of this RNA to show that people accept got information technology.
"The clever lab people tell me that extraction can be quite problematic.
"And so, information technology might have been a practical reason, only other countries were doing information technology: Frg and and then on were doing it. I don't know why the UK dropped mass testing."
Linda Bauld, professor of public health at Edinburgh University, says testing is just part of the film: as well equally building upward that capacity, we likewise needed to develop the infrastructure to trace the contacts of all those suspected to accept Covid-19.
"When cases get too high, the organisation can't handle that, so we couldn't be contact tracing, you lot know, 10,000, xx,000 people," she said.
"I tin empathise why it was paused only what I don't empathise is nosotros should have connected building up the infrastructure for mass contact tracing for when nosotros come out of some of the lockdown and when cases are lower.
"We needed to be getting a workforce ready, we needed the applied science to be there, nosotros needed health boards and others to exist drawing up their ain plans.
"Some of that has happened but nosotros should have been using the time – the pause around the eye of March and at present – to really increase that capacity.
"I know it'south happening now, simply I think information technology'south been too late."
The successes of mass testing in suppressing the virus take received widespread attention in countries similar South korea and Deutschland, but Prof Burns too highlighted the examples of Greece and Kingdom of norway – smaller countries with rigorous 'examination, trace, isolate' in place – where deaths have been kept downward to between 100 and 250.
It all comes back to the reproduction number – known as the R number – which is how many people each infected person is infecting in plough. In mid-March in the Great britain, that number is believed to have been at least three.
"That meant people were circulating and rubbing shoulders with each other and very chop-chop, past the time it hits five or six, and then literally y'all're well over 1000," explained Prof Burns.
"Three becomes nine becomes 27 and it merely explodes.
"If you lot isolate people who have the virus then the virus tin't spread, and then there's no doubt that the 'test, trace, isolate' approach would have kept a lid on things much earlier."
Yet over the course of the outbreak, mass testing has been described at various points as a "distraction" and "not the panacea everybody thinks it is" past officials similar Dr Calderwood and the Scottish Government's national clinical director Jason Leitch.
They insisted the tests aren't ever reliable and that social distancing is a more effective way of preventing the disease's spread.
The first steps towards lockdown
Given what nosotros now know about the likely R number in Britain at the time, much has been fabricated of the decision to allow the Cheltenham Festival to take identify from March 10 to 13, the racing event attended by 250,000 people.
Nicola Sturgeon moved ahead of the Uk for the first fourth dimension on an issue on March 12 (a Thursday) – straight afterwards the COBRA meeting which agreed the motility to the "delay phase" – by announcing the banning of mass gatherings from the following week.
Speaking later from Number x, the Prime Minister suggested this was initially downwards to a Scottish-only "resilience" issue – before the U.k. Authorities promptly issued near-identical guidance the following solar day.
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Even the Get-go Minister's pre-emptive announcement could non preclude a Rangers 5 Bayer Leverkusen Europa League tie taking place at Ibrox the evening of March 12, nor Lewis Capaldi's sell-out arena concert in Aberdeen on Sunday, March 15.
"I go the sense that Scotland might have locked downwards before," said Prof Burns, who as well sits on Scotland's council of economic advisers.
"But you lot could see that there would be a lot of discussion at a political level, and it was pretty articulate that England was led to lockdown fairly unwillingly.
"So, yeah nosotros could have done information technology earlier and probably should have done information technology earlier, just again, the economic harm that does – not just the harm it does to the economy but the damage it does to people who will lose their jobs and are struggling – that'due south got to be taken into business relationship."
Partly, the motility to lockdown came from a bombshell paper from Regal College London published on March sixteen which circulated at the highest levels in Westminster.
Citing fresh information from Italy, the cess warned the price of inaction in the face of coronavirus could be 250,000 British lives, and further predicted a dire, previously unforeseen level of need for intensive intendance beds.
The scary-sounding notion of "herd immunity", and the idea the peak of the virus could exist massaged rather than aggressively suppressed, brutal by the wayside.
"We were as well late, we were underprepared, we weren't ready and some of the scientific advice was conflicting," concluded Prof Bauld.
Meanwhile, Scotland saw its first Covid-19 death on March 13. Within nine days the expiry price would be 14. Past April ii, officially, it was more than 100. By then, known U.k. deaths had already soared across 1000.
The social restrictions we would come up to know so well came in stages. In the worlds of sport and amusement, many organisations took matters into their own hands in the wake of the First Minister's announcement, with the SPFL suspending all matches on March xiii.
Three days subsequently, the Prime number Minister announced plans to "shield" vulnerable groups like the over-70s, those with underlying health conditions and pregnant women, and told anybody to avoid "non-essential" contact and travel.
And causing consternation in the hospitality and leisure sectors, he urged people to avoid pubs, restaurants, cafes, museums, gyms and entertainment venues without officially ordering these sites to close.
That lodge would finally come up on March twenty, and with it, an unprecedented financial stimulus package to keep the economy adrift, with the government pledging for the first fourth dimension in UK history to pay a proportion of people'southward wages, announcing a furlough scheme that would encounter workers receive an income through the Treasury of up to lxxx% of their normal pay.
It followed a previous declaration from Chancellor Rishi Sunak, a effigy ascent to increasing public prominence, backing businesses with £330bn worth of state-backed loans and offering grants and business organization rates relief to firms in hospitality and leisure – measures adjusted mostly intact by new Scottish finance secretary Kate Forbes.
In Scotland, the Offset Government minister jumped the proverbial gun once once more on March 18, ordering the closure of schools and nurseries for all pupils bar the virtually vulnerable and the children of central workers, although she was non alone: the administration in Wales did the same.
At the 5pm Downing Street briefing subsequently that day, Britain teaching secretary Gavin Williamson followed suit for schools in England.
"Perhaps the First Minister was just getting a bit fed up with dilly-dallying," suggested Prof Burns.
Stay at home
History was made once again on March 23. A sombre Boris Johnson gave a televised address to the nation, ordering all residents of the Britain to stay at home except for the "limited purposes" of shopping for essentials, getting medical supplies, going for one session of daily exercise or helping a vulnerable person.
4 days later, the Prime number Government minister would himself be diagnosed with coronavirus.
Announcing the same measures for Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon was blunt. "The stringent restrictions on our normal day-to-day lives that I'm about to fix out are as difficult and they are unprecedented.
"They amount effectively to what has been described as a lockdown."
A fortnight before all this, Toni Giugliano flew into Rome for a visit, before any travel restrictions had been put in place and while cases in that region of Italy were no more alarming than in parts of England
A Scottish-Italian citizen and Italian speaker with family there, Italia is Mr Giugliano'southward second domicile.
Coronavirus: My trip to the supermarket in lockdown Rome Read now
Within days, he was living under quarantine, as a sweeping national lockdown was imposed by the Italian government.
He spoke to STV News about his predicament on March 10, in comments that now seem eerily prophetic: describing social distancing, one-in, one-out queueing at supermarkets and the closure of public spaces.
"I would depict it as a very Italian lockdown, in the sense you had to fill out a form and it's all very official," he said.
"You just wouldn't have that in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland – I but don't meet that happening here, whereby in order to leave the house you lot're printing out your certificate, and if you're stopped by the ground forces or by the police force you have to justify information technology."
Every bit senior policy manager in Scotland for the Mental Health Foundation (MHF), Mr Giugliano has been busy with work since his return examining the event of lockdown.
A recent study by MHF Scotland found people experiencing loneliness has doubled since the lockdown began – 24% of adults – while four in ten young people accept been feeling it.
"Schools are key for our young people's wellbeing," said Mr Giugliano.
"Yes, we need to brand certain we are saving lives and we're guaranteeing prophylactic only schools provide resource for parents, they provide support for parents, specially those parents in depression-income families that rely on schoolhouse communities.
"Reintroducing immature people back into environments where they can thrive, where they tin develop emotionally, is admittedly crucial."
The lockdown has affected people'due south mental wellness in diverse means, he explained, with not all of them being negative.
"Certainly for some people, this is an opportunity to be able to do the things that perhaps they've never had the adventure to do," he said.
"Perhaps fourth dimension with their family, perhaps a take chances to reconnect with people that they haven't spoken to in a long fourth dimension, possibly a chance to rediscover an old hobby."
But it depends on your circumstances.
"What nosotros know is that people who are in a fiscal or economical situation where they don't know if they're going to exist able to make ends meet, if their business is going to reopen after this lockdown, we know there are people out there, peradventure who are self-employed, who don't take that financial security," Mr Giugliano said.
"We are very worried nigh the fiscal film here."
There'due south "no getting away" from the fact socio-economic policies will have the biggest impact on people's mental health, he said, pointing to the long-continuing link between job security and suicide.
"We know what happens when there's mass unemployment," he said. "Historically, we've seen an increase in suicide rates. We need to make certain we practise everything we tin to prevent that from happening.
"Suicide rates are three times more likely amongst men and ten times more likely in the poorest communities in Scotland."
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The Chancellor has been on telly on several occasions escalating the socio-economic response to this crisis, and yet progress is halting. After days of clamour, the self-employed were backed with the aforementioned furlough package as PAYE workers – simply the scheme won't be open until at least June.
The universal credit standard allowance has been raised and the minimum income flooring for eligibility removed – simply information technology nonetheless takes five weeks later a successful awarding to receive your first payment, and the system has faced the added pressure of 1.2m new claimants since the pandemic began.
As Scots endeavour to effigy out how to cope with a lockdown that subverts and so many of our social instincts and brings all kinds of worries, many have turned to drinkable.
Although information technology may exist partly explained by the closure of pubs, depending on the calendar week, alcohol sales in Scotland are up anywhere from 50% to 58%, according to information Prof Bauld has seen.
Surveys suggest "people who normally don't drink much anyway are drinking less, and some of them aren't drinking anything", she added.
But those who normally drink a lot – those "at near risk of straight alcohol-owing mortality or poor health outcomes" – are drinking much more.
"There'southward a problem here, though we tin all sympathise how that happens in lockdown," she said.
She added: "Underneath everything I think there's only this mild anxiety that most of us have – nosotros don't feel normal – and of course, for some people, there's very meaning anxiety and depression."
Deaths climb and crunch hits No 10
The pandemic was adjacent to reach right into the center of both the Scottish and UK governments, albeit in very different means.
On April 5, as Covid-19 deaths in Scotland topped 350 and neared 5000 in the UK, Dr Calderwood stepped down as Scotland's chief medical officer.
Photographed visiting a second home with her family unit in Fife – reverse to the lockdown restrictions she herself was explaining in public information films on television – her position became untenable throughout the day, despite the FM'south potent initial resistance to losing such an important official.
"I did feel for her. A very hard-working lady," said Prof Burns.
"Presentationally I could meet the problem," the former CMO added. "But in fact, yous go your family in a car and drive to some identify that you lot endemic and unload them, you're non exposing them to anyone else."
Subsequently that twenty-four hours, news broke that would rock British politics: Prime Minister Boris Johnson had been admitted to infirmary after a calendar week of dealing with his own bout of coronavirus.
The side by side night, he was moved to an intensive intendance unit – equally and so many thousands of others take been – where he would afterward reverberate that his life had hung in the balance.
Past April 12, patient deaths in the UK had reached 10,000. On Apr 19, new National Records of Scotland statistics showed more than than 1600 fatalities in Scotland linked to Covid-19.
The new figures also broadened the public'south understanding of the devastating toll coronavirus was taking in the land'southward care homes.
The proportion of virus-linked deaths occurring in Scottish care homes has risen in a matter of weeks from 25% to 39%, with nigh 900 to date and half of all homes registering at least i confirmed or suspected Covid-nineteen case. Issues effectually personal protective equipment (PPE) for staff in these homes have rarely left the headlines.
Information coming out of south-eastern asia and Italian republic early on made it "very clear that a lot of older people were dying and a lot of them were dying in intendance settings," said Prof Bauld.
"The whole issue of PPE for our social intendance staff, the testing that is needed for older residents, nosotros should accept realised that was going to be the problem that information technology has been and I think we've been playing catch-up in that sector.
"Sadly, information technology reflects the fact that social care is undervalued and hugely nether-resourced in the Britain and that'south a historic problem."
It takes the states back to planning: the thorny question of Scotland and the United kingdom'due south preparedness for a serious pandemic, one that is shrouded in secrecy.
Much hay has been made of a 2016 Britain simulation drill called Practise Cygnus, which examined how the NHS would handle a pandemic. The findings are classified but reported to exist "terrifying" and to have revealed major gaps in the country's preparedness.
And as the Daily Record reported on Saturday, the Scottish Government carried out its own planning exercise four years agone, dubbed Silver Swan, which identified bug around PPE, with it unclear the extent to which its recommendations were turned into action.
Even so despite the bug of unprecedented global need for PPE, comparatively high death tolls and a peak of Covid-19 infirmary cases in Scotland of nearly 2000 on some days in April, politicians on both sides of the border are right to say at no bespeak has the NHS been overwhelmed in the way many feared it might be.
"Given the challenge," said Dr Hills, the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland's response has been "pretty good". He added: "No country has 'done well' as I am not sure that doing well is something that can exist measured in conventional terms.
"Even those countries that appear to accept done well in terms of very strong (or no) lockdown may endure with second or 3rd spikes of infection."
However, Prof Burns is emphatic. "The UK's preparedness was not expert."
"I think in the postal service-Covid review of how we did, it would be very interesting to look at the discussions that took place after swine flu and various other epidemics that occurred, considering there would accept been discussions," he said.
"It would besides exist interesting to know if the results were shared with the devolved nations, as I would be pretty confident that the Showtime Government minister, given her feel as health government minister during the swine flu epidemic, would accept this very seriously, and would make sure we were prepared."
Prof Bauld added: "We're commencement to empathize where the errors were made – and let's confront it, they were made in the UK."
But she feels, from a Scottish standpoint at least, one strength of the response has been clear, consistent messaging. Polling would seem to comport that out, a YouGov poll conducted in late Apr finding 71% accept a lot or a fair amount of confidence in the First Minister, while Scots are carve up about 50-fifty on the UK Government's handling of the crisis.
"I've been when I can, watching both (Scottish and UK regime) briefings every solar day, and the tone, the clarity, the unity is different, particularly the tone and authority with which the First Minister has communicated," the Edinburgh professor said.
"In Westminster, we've seen various colleagues contributing to that. Clearly, (England's) chief medical officeholder (Chris Whitty) is hugely apparent – as is the chief scientific adviser – simply he's not always been there considering he was likewise unwell.
"But the politicians in Westminster, I call up, have been much more defensive, and so, of course, sadly we did not have a Prime number Minister equally he was seriously ill.
"So, I think the communication in Scotland has been better. Some of the earlier decisions that were made by the Scottish Government I recall take been preferable."
Prof McHarg said that while at that place have been variations in the two governments' approaches, differences of substance have been fewer, and in some cases – like Sturgeon'due south advice to shut down "non-essential" construction, contrary to guidance in England – oasis't always worked out.
"I imagine they will probably want to continue operating on a coordinated basis," she said.
"They run the risk when they're interim just through guidance and not through legislation that their guidance will be ignored."
She said the advice to the construction sector was "basically ignored" considering "there was no legislation to back it".
Key aspects of government messaging, especially early on, revolved around food and groceries shopping, amid initial panic buying of long-life shelf items such as pasta, anti-bacterial products and – at times, to a rather ridiculous extent – toilet ringlet.
David Lonsdale, director of the Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC), said: "Overall we have been impressed and heartened by the support and aid on offering from the UK and Scottish governments to retailers during this crisis, including the flexibilities we asked for – like on shop opening hours, on commitment timings to stores and to warehouses, and the financial support.
"We have said to authorities that when it comes to the phased ending of the lockdown they need very articulate and just messages for firms, for workers and for shoppers."
The 'new normal'?
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Lockdown has already inverse social club in far-reaching ways.
"Very early on on in this we started talking almost a 'new normal'," said Prof Burns. "It's a phrase that's come into common use at present.
"I hope we don't go back to normal. I hope that, as a gild, nosotros take discovered more social cohesion. When you go out for do, you pass people at a distance simply there's always a smile, a moving ridge, a few words. That people are helping each other out in a fashion they've non washed routinely, they oasis't had to practice routinely, I suppose, but the spirit of helping each other has been very heartening.
"And the economic implications of this, I recollect, should be that we are much more local in our investment, that instead of having big corporations come forth and use a few folk in a manufactory and then go off when profitability doesn't look right, we take inclusive growth that builds on the kind of businesses folk take turned to during this time."
Prof Bauld and Dr Hills both specialise in behavioural scientific discipline. As nosotros prepare for the seventh calendar week of lockdown, are they surprised at the extent to which people have abided by the rules?
"It's been unusual the extent to which people have followed the advice," Prof Bauld said.
"In terms of behaviour, there take been really meaning changes.
"The beginning 1, obviously, is the switch to trying to communicate with others in our social networks, families, in a unlike fashion, not beingness able to see them, having to suddenly get access to digital tools and, of class, not everybody is able to access those.
"The 2d thing is we're all being encouraged to follow public health guidance – things like hand hygiene, which most of usa should accept been doing anyway, but at that place'southward been a shift."
Dr Hills said: "It'southward quite boggling and does show that people are essentially and inherently sensible, trustworthy, caring and minded to do the correct thing.
"There take been relatively few breaches of the rules – a kind of quarantine by consent. I think restrictions on life volition be accepted for a considerable time to come if necessary.
"A key enabler here has been the continuity of food chains – simply amazing – and the adaptability of retailers."
The SRC estimates that retailers still operating in Scotland have spent £9m on PPE and on implementing social distancing measures, such equally through plexiglass screens, signage and flooring markings. "This volition ascent as more than so-chosen 'non-essential' shops re-open," said Mr Lonsdale.
Prof Bauld added: "The vast majority of usa – from the data, over 90% of united states – are post-obit the advice almost at all times, and the divisions that we had experienced before around Brexit, independence, et cetera – they're all still there simply at that place's a much bigger threat at the moment."
What nearly politics as usual?
So far, despite the all-consuming crisis of Covid-19, the Prime number Minister has vowed to stay the grade on Brexit, with no extension to the transition menstruation. The UK and EU's chief Brexit negotiators have resumed talks to strike a trade deal, subsequently both had to self-isolate in March with coronavirus symptoms.
Merely on March 18, the Scottish Government formally dropped its plan for indyref2 in 2020.
"I'm not surprised that the independence referendum proposal was ditched," said Prof McHarg.
"That faced huge problems in terms of getting the Uk Government to agree and the possibility of legal challenges and then on.
"I imagine for the Scottish Government this is a little bit of a useful get-out, which is non to say they weren't correct to exercise so."
Adjacent year, if it yet goes ahead, is supposed to see a Holyrood ballot, with the SNP looking for a fourth term in authorities. If it takes place, Prof McHarg "would look the constitutional question to come back and to be a big upshot in that".
"We have seen that constitutional politics or viewing this whole crisis through a constitutional lens has non gone away," she said.
"In that location are some people who want to interpret things in those terms, and then I don't recall this is the finish of the independence debate."
Meanwhile, Prof Burns hopes leaders will turn their attending to making the state more "self-sufficient" in areas like manufacturing, and "expect to our ain people".
"If that ways we're slightly less assisting than offshoring to the far-east or whatever, so be information technology. Nosotros create a improve lodge, a more equal social club, a healthier society," he said.
"I would like to think we'll get there… then I'm optimistic in the medium term.
"In the short term I think it's going to be very difficult to get out of lockdown. I think very, very gentle moves in that direction, keep a very close center on the number of cases we're seeing, and test, examination, test."
On Friday, the United kingdom Government claimed a capacity for 100,000 coronavirus tests per day – a target set by health secretarial assistant Matt Hancock at the kickoff of April – although the figures included a bit of jiggery-pokery effectually home testing kits that have been delivered merely not yet returned.
Total testing chapters in Scotland has risen from 350 a day at the start of the outbreak to more than 8000, according to the First Minister.
Yet Federal republic of germany, by the outset of April, was already averaging 116,000 tests a day. With a population effectually a fifth higher than the United kingdom'due south, Germany has had a quarter the number of deaths.
And Norway, a country of comparable population to Scotland, which dramatically ramped upward testing from the early stages of the crunch, has tested more than 170,000 citizens – between two to iii times more than Scotland. Despite most 8000 infections, Kingdom of norway's death toll is 210.
In Scotland, combining confirmed and suspected Covid-19 cases, deaths number more than than 2500.
Norway was besides one of the showtime European countries to develop an innovative contact tracing app, which informs Norwegians by mobile if they have been close to an infected person, using bearding wellness information.
Just looking to the future, technology is simply role of the equation if Scotland is to have robust contact tracing along with testing – measures all UK governments concur volition be essential to ease the lockdown.
Contacts traced will then need to exist quarantined, explains Prof Bauld. "Most people volition be able to self-isolate at home but in that location will be some who cannot for very good reasons.
"Either they don't accept adept accommodation, or they are in a situation where they can't stay in the home for whatever reason.
"Governments needs to retrieve near using hotels or setting up other places where people tin exist isolated for the time that is required."
How will this change us?
The Scottish Authorities told STV News dealing with Covid-xix "is the biggest challenge we have faced in our lifetimes".
A spokeswoman said: "The Scottish Government is engaged in a significant expansion of testing capacity to back up a test, trace and isolate approach, which will be a crucial part of any moves to lift the lockdown measures in the futurity.
"At all times, the Scottish Government's actions accept been guided past the best and most upward to engagement expert scientific communication, working closely with governments across the U.k..
"Decisions volition always exist fabricated in the best interests of people in Scotland. The virus doesn't respect borders or boundaries and it makes sense to align our activity equally much equally possible.
"This is the biggest challenge we have faced in our lifetimes. It is correct and proper that decisions taken during this process face scrutiny but all our efforts are going towards protecting life and the people of Scotland during this unprecedented crisis."
A UK Authorities spokeswoman said: "This is an unprecedented global pandemic and we have taken the correct steps at the right time to combat it, guided past the all-time scientific advice and working closely with all iv nations of the UK.
"At all times throughout the four nations the NHS has had the spare capacity which it needs to answer to the pandemic, with intensive care unit beds and ventilators available to everyone requiring such specialist intendance.
"The government has been working day and night to boxing coronavirus, delivering a strategy designed to protect our NHS and save lives, and take unprecedented steps to support businesses and workers and protect the UK'southward economy."
At the inter-government level, one change Prof McHarg hopes the pandemic will bring about is "a more federal spirit".
"If the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland is to survive, so the diverse levels need to learn to cooperate with each other," she said.
"The UK Government needs to non pull rank. The devolved governments need to recognise the value of common approaches."
She added: "I actually think they do. There's been a lot more cooperation than disharmonize in our system of devolution in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland.
"Sometimes that cooperation is overlooked considering information technology'due south not the thing that makes headlines, only having more formal structures for that cooperation and a more cooperative attitude would be a benefit."
And what about the land's mental wellness in these times? "Make certain you are checking reputable sources because there's a lot of news out there that isn't and there'southward a lot of faux information doing the rounds on social media." That's the advice from Mr Giugliano.
"No ane has a crystal brawl. No one knows what'due south going to happen in seven months' fourth dimension, so permit's accept it a day at a time," he added.
Scottish economy 'could shrink by 33% due to lockdown' Read now
Economically, the prospects are stark, with global financial disruption already rampant, and expected by many to reach levels non seen since the Great Low of the 1930s.
The Scottish Government'south principal economist has warned GDP could collapse by a tertiary in the coming months, bringing with information technology a tide of joblessness and business closures.
"We've already seen several retailers going into administration during this crisis," said Mr Lonsdale.
"I take no dubiety we volition see more, unfortunately, particularly if they are unable to merchandise and generate an income.
"Government fiscal assistance volition just support the industry for and so long – ultimately it is about getting retail dorsum upward and running and doing what it does best."
On April 30, speaking at his first Number 10 printing conference since he was himself hospitalised, Boris Johnson declared the Great britain is now "by the superlative" of the disease.
The question is, and will continue to be: at what cost?
Source: https://news.stv.tv/politics/coronavirus-100-days-that-have-transformed-scotland
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