Next Monday is not Freedom Day.
The First Minister has said again and again that such nomenclature is unhelpful. But, as she confirmed in her statement to the Scottish Parliament yesterday, August 9 will see another tranche of restrictions eased.
Physical distancing will end, a boon to many but a blow to those of us for whom the pandemic has suited our antisocial outlook. Any outstanding closure orders on venues will go as will the numbers cap for social events, requiring other excuses to be found for not inviting least-favourite relatives to wedding receptions.
Not-Freedom-Day won’t affect international travel restrictions or face-masking, the latter of which Nicola Sturgeon said most did not consider 'a significant hardship'. Meanwhile, schools will still have to maintain social distancing for six weeks into the autumn term.
This is what it would look like when Scotland moves ‘beyond the current Level Zero restrictions’. That implies our new status will be Level Minus One, though Sturgeon declined to give the situation from Monday a specific name.
It was another of those Zoom sessions where the principals squinted awkwardly into web cams from spare rooms and cramped offices. Except Sturgeon, who was beamed in from a room bathed alternately in black and cobalt blue that looked altogether like the lair of a cabal of super-villians. Though since it was actually St Andrew’s House, ‘super’ might be stretching it a bit.
Douglas Ross noted apparent contradictions in the new arrangements, which would see certain guidance remain in place but be stripped of legal force. 'Clear communication is essential to maintaining public trust and compliance and there isn't much clear on many fronts in this statement,' he told the First Minister. Sturgeon accused him and his party of ‘trying to undermine the clear communication’ from the Scottish Government. Trust the Tories to pick an easy target.
Otherwise, you'll be glad to know everything is still going swell. When the difficulties that affected Test and Protect a few weeks back were brought up, Sturgeon insisted the system ‘did not buckle under that pressure, it adapted and coped with that pressure’. Her national clinical director Jason Leitch said at the time that Test and Protect was 'straining', but perhaps he was assuming a certain level of intelligence on the part of people listening to him.
The First Minister has previously expressed civil liberties concerns about vaccine passports, which she seems to have resolved by rebranding them ‘Covid-status certification’. Sturgeon admitted a certification app for access to ‘high-risk venues’ was in the development stage but nothing was set in stone yet. She has repeatedly maintained that vaccine passports would not be a condition of obtaining health or other public services.
Her echo took on a mind of its own yesterday, with Patrick Harvie lamenting ‘a worrying emphasis’ on proving vaccine status and pointing out both the human rights dangers and the risk of ‘giving people a false sense of safety’.
The First Minister cracked a few jokes about how her own nightclub days were behind her, even though she almost certainly spent her youthful Saturday nights reading back issues of the Scots Independent and practising her maiden speech to Parliament.
Her words seemed dishonest for another reason, though. Is her government going to roll out a certification app and have it apply only to bars and clubs, but not, say, busy Accident & Emergency wards with heaving waiting rooms; patients, paramedics and police coming and going; relatives rushing to see loved ones and cleaners going off shift? Is she prepared to tell NHS staff they are less deserving of protection than bouncers and pint-pullers?
The problem with developing apps like these is that, for all the add-ons and features built in, none of them will be the First Minister's hand-wringing reservations. Once they become normalised for one sector of life, they could so easily creep their way into another and another. No wonder she's not calling it Freedom Day.
Originally published in the Scottish Daily Mail on August 4, 2021.
Covid certification status - a mouthful indeed.
This is vaccine passports on mobile phones! For the rich who have £200 mobile and £100+ mobile contract.
What about 30% of population without mobile device? How could she forgot them?
20p silicon vaccine passport wristband invented by Scot, in fife!
Even comes in 2 pence paper version for those on budget.
Now rich and poor can protect each other and fight covid spreading as winter approaches.
Info@awooga.com for details my Alba Mp (Neale Hanvey Kirkcalcdy backs it) - SNP block it.
Scottland has independence in health - and does not lead way in any regard. How odd?
Sturgeon was even Health Secretary - is there no end to her incompetence?
Even in a pandemic - when world cries out for cheap panacea - why not a Scottish one?
Tartan wristbands for tartan tourist! If it beats covid and limits spread, how can it be evil?