Covid: Scotland needs to show it has learned how to live with the virus – Scotsman comment

Nicola Sturgeon’s announcement of a limit of three households for social events ahead of Christmas, amid rising concern about Covid, was grimly familiar.
The threat posed by the Omicron Covid variant means we all need to behave responsibly (Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)The threat posed by the Omicron Covid variant means we all need to behave responsibly (Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
The threat posed by the Omicron Covid variant means we all need to behave responsibly (Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

But it came with a major difference: the First Minister was asking us to abide by this limit, not issuing an order backed by the threat of legal action.

Those with a similar mindset to certain Downing Street aides are free to hold parties or “cheese and wine” events if they wish to do so, no laws will be potentially broken.

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Despite the growing threat from the Omicron Covid variant, we are being asked to behave like adults and make our own choices based on advice from the government and its experts and our knowledge of the risks involved.

However, according to Edinburgh University academic Professor Rowland Kao, such guidance, along with new legal requirements on businesses, including greater enforcement of social distancing, may not be enough. Much depends, he said, on the “very tight race between booster vaccination uptake and Omicron spread”.

So if we value being treated like an adult, we should act like one.

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In this case, that means getting a booster vaccination against Covid, wearing a face mask, observing social distancing, and having a smaller family Christmas than we might perhaps like.

If instead, we throw caution to the wind and our toys out the pram, then we might risk a return to something more like ‘nanny state knows best’.

The people of Scotland need to show our understandably nervous leaders that we have learned how to live with Covid and that we no longer need to be told, or forced, to behave.

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