Covid Scotland: Businesses must be protected if new restrictions come in – Scotsman comment

One theme of the Scottish government’s handling of the Covid crisis has been the persistent complaints from businesses about sudden announcements of unexpected rules and restrictions.

So yesterday’s statement by Deputy First Minister John Swinney – in which he warned of a return to tighter controls on our freedom – may be an attempt to respond to that criticism. We are now on a warning.

The mood music certainly sounded bleak. Scotland was facing a “precarious and unpredictable” situation ahead of winter with the risk of a “very quick increase” in levels of Covid, Swinney warned.

“Starting from the current high level of infection in the community, and the intense pressure the NHS is already under as a result, some scenarios for what may happen next are very concerning,” he said. “We need to avoid the most dangerous of those scenarios.”

A review of the current rules is to take place next week after talks with the business community. Wider use of vaccine passports – for example in bars, restaurants and leisure facilities – stricter rules about face coverings, and increased homeworking are among the measures being considered.

Effective communication of any new restrictions, should they come, will be key and the government needs to make them as simple as possible so people are able to understand, remember and more easily abide by them.

However, ministers’ main focus should be to do everything they can to protect those businesses that have been worst affected by the Covid crisis and prevent them from suffering further financial damage.

If new Covid restriction must come in, Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney need to try to help businesses that have been hardest hit (Picture: Russell Cheyne/pool/AFP via Getty Images)

So, instead of targeting more restrictions on the hospitality sector, for example, the government should first seek to impose broader rules on the general public as a whole – such as those relating to face masks and home working – to spread the burden.

The onus will then be on us to stick to these new rules and treat them with the required level of seriousness for the sake of our health, hard-pressed NHS workers and the economy.

If we are truly heading into a “dangerous” scenario, ministers must wake those who have slipped into a complacent slumber about Covid in the mistaken belief that the threat has passed.

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