Scotland must learn from other countries about social distancing – leader comment

The furlough scheme has undoubtedly saved jobs during the coronavirus lockdown. Easing the two-metre social-distancing rule – if and when safe to do so – may save more.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak, taking part in a nationwide clap for carers, announced the furlough scheme at the start of the lockdown. (Photo by Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images)

It is an extraordinary demonstration of the power at the disposal of the state. For weeks, about 628,000 employees in Scotland have been paid 80 per cent of their salary by the UK Government – despite not working and, indeed, not being allowed to – while a further 146,000 self-employed people have been given a total of £425 million in support.

The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme has been an operation on a par with the kind of mobilisation of national resources previously only seen during wartime. Before the coronavirus outbreak hit, who would have believed that such a course of action as this would happen in their lifetimes?

It will take a long time to pay off the money used to fund such largesse but, hopefully, it will turn out to have been worth it. The consequences if all, or even a fraction, of these jobs had been suddenly lost hardly bear thinking about.

That said, our economy remains in serious trouble and many jobs are still at risk. Whether they survive will depend on how well we perform the difficult balancing act of re-opening the economy while making sure we do not allow the virus to flare up again.

What we are doing at the moment seems to be working, with estimates of the virus’s reproduction rate, or R number, in Scotland falling from between 0.7 and 0.9 to between 0.6 and 0.8. That progress suggests it may be safe to further relax the rules, but we will need to remain cautious and alert to signs of danger.

One key consideration is the two-metre social distancing rule. There have been calls for this to be reduced to one-metre to help businesses like restaurants and pubs in particular and, indeed, this is the distance recommended by the World Health Organisation and adopted by several countries.

It may be that because of the scale of the UK’s outbreak – one of the worst in the world – we need tougher restrictions for longer. However, we should be looking at the experiences of countries where one-metre is used to inform our decision-making. They may identify specific problem areas – a publican trying to ensure drunken patrons remain a metre apart may find it difficult – but also places where it works well.

“Call us boring” – to a paraphrase Nicola Sturgeon – but The Scotsman has strongly supported the lockdown and a cautious approach to easing the restrictions. However it is absolutely vital to be alive to any opportunities to get people out of furlough and back to work.

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