Readers' Letters: Quarantine rules ignore mental health needs

A staff member looks at a thermal image of a guest in a quarantine hotel

But surely I can't be the only UK resident to have my close family abroad (ie parents, at least) to wonder what provisions are made for us to simply visit them or receive their visit even once, without an ''essential'' reason? Is seeing close family not essential for one’s wellbeing? Can the government prevent us from the basic right of leaving the country briefly to visit family, or have them visit us, with all the proper quarantine measures, proof of vaccination, and negative tests? Can we be forced to pay an unaffordable hotel quarantine just to see family?

For EU and non-EU citizens like me and my husband who are residents in the UK, and even for UK citizens who have their parents or children abroad, there seems to be no other way to see family at least once in the year other than in the event of a tragedy considered ''essential'' enough to be granted a visit. Is the only other option leaving the lives we've built here and returning to our birth countries?

Of course there are worse situations in times of a pandemic, but citizens' basic rights should at least be recognised. Lockdown has already taken enough of a toll on mental health. If, say, TV productions are still permitted to go on and have actors and staff fly from abroad, why can't people safely fly their family in? Even people who have been vaccinated? Even for the government to address the issue explicitly would make it somewhat more bearable.

Manon H Lemaire, Castle Terrace, Edinburgh

Ray of light

Did anybody spot the odd, bright light drifting south-west over Edinburgh on Thursday evening? I spotted it at about 6.50pm, it seemed to have red and green lights flashing. When it was still there an hour later, I decided to look at it through binoculars and was puzzled. Depending upon the magnification, it was either shaped like a 3D drawing of a box, or a pyramid, in equally see-through layout.

The light was pulsing through the whole thing (like a squid), rather than being distinct, individual lights. The shape changed from time to time, from a distinct form, like a glitter ball with a central rim, then becoming more like a flat cooking pan with a shape on top like a dolphin with no tail. The whole thing changed colour all the time as it drifted south-west away from me towards the Pentlands. It may well have been a weather balloon. My binoculars are not very strong, but the whole thing was quite mystifying. As I write, it is still there, just as bright and it is now 9.25pm.

Can any reader offer an explanation? I tried to call RAF Lossiemouth to see if they knew of any weather balloons that could be the cause, but only got through to an answering service.

Peter Hopkins, Morningside Road, Edinburgh

£20m question

At a time when there is such pressure on public finances it is incomprehensible that over £20 million has been paid by the Crown Office to former Rangers administrators David Whitehouse and Paul Clark for their wrongful arrest, and interrogation, followed by their release, eight years ago, on malicious charges of fraud. It is understood that more claims for compensation, up to £80m, may now be pursued by three others in the same case.

People who have served prison sentences of years, even decades, of wrongful imprisonment have not earned a fraction of these massive sums. The reason for such seemingly disproportionate payments should be more transparent, in a case which itself has had no legal precedent in Scotland.

I H R Allan, Canongate, Edinburgh

Jags shambles

There appears to be great confusion regarding vaccinations for Covid-19. Ten days after I had a jab at our local surgery I received a blue envelope inviting me to attend a local hospital for vaccination. People queuing for the vaccination at the hospital were sent home due to cold weather and double booking.

How can our First Minister be proud of this shambles?

A A Bullions, Glencairn Crescent, Leven, Fife

Read it and weep

Gill Turner is correct in saying I am “ill informed” (Letters, February 12). But then, I was informed by Jeane Freeman, whose record on providing reliable information is questionable. One statistic missing from Ms Turner’s list is Ms Freeman’s target of 1,000,000 vaccines by the end of January which, unless I am ill informed, was met ten days later than that date.

Ms Turner’s attempt to insinuate my comments are directed not towards the SNP government but to health workers is distasteful. What will have made these workers, whose efforts are indeed heroic, “weep” is the inability to vaccinate due to having no doses or the government’s failure to get mass centres fully operational at an earlier date.

Colin Hamilton, Braid Hills Avenue, Edinburgh

Out in the cold

George Shanks (Letters, February 12) comments on our First Minister’s lack of attention to Scotland’s infrastructure. This reinforces the view that in an independent and initially cash-strapped Scotland, the potential of vast areas outwith Edinburgh and Glasgow will be ignored, and only the Central Belt will be regarded as economically viable.

Even now, the Highlands seem to be considered suitable only for windfarms – supplied and built by foreign companies – so yielding no economic benefit. If this is an indication of future attitude, it is no surprise that attention to the infrastructure of our vast country is being deliberately ignored.

We need an integrated system of road, rail, and air transport to develop all parts of Scotland, or independence will make the already economically neglected parts of Scotland even more damaged.

Malcolm Parkin, Gamekeepers Road, Kinnesswood, Kinross

Get the evidence

You report that Alex Salmond may be compelled to give evidence to the parliamentary inquiry. I hope the committee will also use its compulsion powers to require the attendance of relevant special advisers, and will rescind its decision not to publish evidence from Geoff Aberdein, who attended the prearranged meeting with Nicola Sturgeon to which Jackie Baillie MSP referred in parliament this week. It is interesting to note that the SNP/Green majority, reflecting the alliance when certain issues arise, has a pick-and-choose policy of “don't pick what is not in the First Minister's interest”.

The committee might even go further with its powers, and compel the Lord Advocate to appear with all the remaining material it has so far refused to deliver. Mindful of the rights of people going before a parliamentary inquiry to be free to answer questions, I cannot see how Mr Salmond can, under oath, tell all he knows given that the Lord Advocate's department, the Crown Office, continues to hold the threat of criminal prosecution if he does.

Jim Sillars, Grange Loan, Edinburgh

Flagging views?

Good old Kenny MacAskill. You always know that when a Nat stalwart writes an article for the Scotsman (Perspective, February 11), the British Empire will be mentioned. With Kenny, it is clearly something which is seared on his soul. I expect that that is because we Scots created most of it, of course.

On Thursday Mr MacAskill was concerned about our flag, namely the Union Flag. He doesn’t call it that, of course, because he wants to wrap himself in the flag of the Scottish Parliament, namely the Saltire. He thinks the Union Flag “plays to Empire nostalgia”, rather as biscuit tins with Bonnie Prince Charlie on play to Nat dreams of nostalgia, no doubt? He equates the Union Flag to Loyalism, which is “quite ugly”. Would that include the Loyalists who also wave the Saltire? Many of them do, of course. Perhaps he excuses them, just like the baying mobs waving Saltires in Indyref2 gatherings who march in one Scottish town after another pretending that they are locals when they have been bussed from the other side of Scotland.

But what about the non-Loyalists with whom his fellow Nationalists are so friendly? They wave the Irish Tricolour with gay abandon, after all. They paint houses in Ulster with it, just as Loyalists do with Union Flags and Saltires. Does Mr MacAskill disapprove of Irish Nationalists for doing that? If not, why not?

Andrew H N Gray, Craiglea Drive, Edinburgh

Greed blows in

Whilst I largely agree with Nigel Martin’s letter (Scotsman, February 12), I would ask; where is the right place to put a wind farm? Not close to where people have to live with the noise and visual impact which results in their properties being devalued. Not close to wildlife who have their habitats destroyed. Not on deep peat which is a natural carbon sink. Not somewhere that private water supplies will be affected or a precious landscape desecrated; I could go on.

The point is that such places do not exist in Scotland. No, not even at Whitelee Wind Farm on the Eaglesham Moor, which many people think is an ideal spot as it is close to our largest city. It was built on deep peat, affected water supplies and the residential amenity of people living in that area. The wild and desolate moorland had a beauty of its own but is now what can only be described as an industrial wasteland.

No-one wants to live beside a wind farm unless they are financially involved in the project but as developers fight for every available piece of land, not to save the planet but to make as much profit as possible, many more people and wild creatures are going to have their lives destroyed and our treasured landscapes will cease to exist.

Aileen Jackson, Knockglass, Uplawmoor

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Readers' Letters: Quarantine rules ignore mental health needs

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