Readers' letters: Sturgeon’s mixed message on Covid mask wearing

As Nicola Sturgeon asks us to wear our masks, given Covid hospitalisations in Scotland are at their highest for over a year, why is she still withdrawing face covering wearing guidance on 21 March?

Nicola Sturgeon wears a face mask with a map of Ukraine on it as she meets members of the Ukrainian Community at the Edinburgh Ukrainian Club

The government’s 5 March report “State of the Epidemic in Scotland” highlighted that the number testing positive in care homes rose by 154 per cent from 6 to 27 February and the ONS survey for the week ending 5 March showed a record 300,000, 1 in 19 people, in Scotland had Covid.

With deaths and ICU admissions also starting to rise why should restrictions be relaxed?Omicron has proved to be every bit as infectious as the Scottish Government’s December report on the variant suggested, and as predicted it has gone on to infect women disproportionately, with rates nearly 50 per cent higher than men in the 15 to 64 age group

Moreover, the government has procrastinated in rolling out a second round of boosters to the over 75s, given most had received their first booster well over 12 weeks before, the duration when experts say vaccine effectiveness starts to wane.The Scottish Health Secretary has played down the record infection rate, pointing to the relatively low ICU level.

The huge unknown is how the 50 per cent rise in infections since the end of February will translate into serious illness and heap more pressure on the NHS.With record infection rates in Scotland higher than the rest of Britain and hospitalisations starting to rise in line with the government‘s worst case projections, boards like NHS Lanarkshire are struggling to cope and may rue the relaxation of restrictions and delayed second boosters.

“Learn to live with Covid” is a great soundbite but the Health Secretary and Ms Sturgeon surely need to walk the talk by protecting the vulnerable and our NHS.

Neil Anderson, Edinburgh

Madness of war

Mutually assured destruction (MAD), the fundamental military strategy and national security doctrine that underpinned and justified the post Second World War build-up of nuclear weapons, has been exposed by Vladimir Putin as ineffectual (Scotsman 12 March).

The nuclear stockpile can certainly still destruct, but it demonstrably cannot deter a leader such as Putin.

Indeed, the very existence of the nuclear stockpiles has been turned on its head to provide cover for the invasion of Ukraine by taking off the table military and other action that might have been taken if the stockpile did not exist.

The Chinese leadership will be pondering this lesson of current events in Europe.

The West should also be considering the effectiveness of the current muscling up strategy to defend the old world order

It is time to focus on creating a new and better world order to deal with 21st century economic, military and ecological realities, challenges and opportunities. To do otherwise would be mad.

Stewart Sweeney, Adelaide, South Australia

Witch apology

Blaise Pascal, the philosopher and mathematician, said ''Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.”

Nowadays, it is almost impossible to believe that in the great age of witch trials (1550 to 1700), nearly 4000 innocent people – 84 per cent of whom were women – were tried as so-called witches under the Witchcraft Act 1563.

About 2500 of the accused were, by a terrible miscarriage of justice, executed – often by immolation. Nicola Sturgeon has issued a formal apology (Sturgeon is right to act on ‘witches’, Scotsman, 12 March).

The murder of so-called witches is a crime instigated by God’s command in Exodus 22:18. Therefore, an apology is more appropriately due from the Church of Scotland and the Catholic Church. A statue paid for by these churches would be a more lasting, ever-present reminder of a horrific chapter in Scotland's religious history.

Doug Clark, Currie, Midlothian

Ferry expensive

I know a lot of folk who are less than pleased at the incompetent way in which rusting ferries have been sitting at the SNP-nationalised Ferguson Marine Engineering yard for years and are likely to fall apart before they are ever launched.

The SNP government took over the yard and these rust-buckets have cost £114 million to date as well as the absolute fortune spent on Tim Hair who supposedly ran it of £2500 a day, adding a bonus of £1.3 million. What was that for?

Now, we find that the same party of government in Scotland has given a "£105 million contract to build two new CalMac ferries for its Islay routes" to a Turkish shipyard.

Transport minister Jenny Gilruth said, "This underlines the Scottish government's commitment to bringing in new ferries to support our island communities".

You would think that Scotland didn't have any shipyards, but, then of course they are still jammed with rusting ferries the SNP seems unable to build.

I suggest that the SNP acknowledge their track-record in this tragic tale and create a new logo for the upcoming council elections. "Vote SNP. Stronger for Turkey."

John Fraser, Glasgow

Green funding

It is disingenuous of the Greens to claim on the back page of their Conference brochure that they do not receive any state funding and that they rely on donations.

Back in August last year, the Presiding Officer announced that the Scottish Greens would have their Short Money, ie public funding, reduced by just under £16,000 to £230,000 due to two of them becoming Ministers.

Jane Lax, Aberlour

Nuclear unclear

Leah Gunn Barrett (Letters,12 March) sticks with the current SNP/Green. opposition to nuclear power and says that renewables projects can be developed quickly.

Salter's nodding ducks to exploit wave power were invented in 1974. They were not cheap. We are still waiting for their installation.

Even if they had been, they don't generate when the sea is calm, just as windmills don't turn when the wind doesn't blow and classical hydro doesn't generate after a drought (this happened in the UK in 2003).

Because of this intemittency, back up is needed. COP 26 demonised coal, gas and oil, but not nuclear. Small modular reactors might help.

It is incorrect for Ms Gunn Barrett to say that they have "folded" in Wales and Cumbria because they were never there in the first place, sites there being identified as possible locations for them in the future, because traditional big reactors at them have recently closed after long, safe and successful lives, generating a lot of electricity but no CO2, and no Nimbys.

Hugh Pennington, Aberdeen

Energy errors

Leah Gunn Barrett's letter, (Scotsman, 12 March), attacking Calum Miller for suggesting we need more fossil fuels, fracking and nuclear for energy security contains a number of errors.

First, Combined Cycle Gas Turbines generated the cheapest electricity in Great Britain until mid 2021 even with the government carbon tax of £28 per MWh.

Fracking for gas is a contentious issue but we are presently happy to import 27 per cent of our essential needs from USA fracked gas.

Second, Ms Barrett says "nuclear power, apart from the unsolved problem of toxic waste, is uneconomic."

The toxic waste she refers to is "spent fuel" and this material from both civil and military sources can be recycled as fuel in new nuclear plants reducing waste storage by approx. 95 per cent.

Nuclear plant costs without any subsidy can provide the cheapest wholesale cost of electricity if they are built and financed at government borrowing rates.

Contrary to what Ms Barrett says, the Nuclear Energy Financing Bill is intended to attract insurance firms and pension funds to invest in nuclear projects which will still result in higher costs than with government borrowing.

Third, we have the misstated quote that "renewables generate nearly 100 per cent of Scotland's energy."

This is true some of the time but at times only provides approx. 10 per cent and the shortfall is provided by gas and nuclear generation.

To suggest that "renewable projects can be developed quickly and are six times cheaper than gas generation" is totally incorrect.

It should be noted that renewable projects in 2021 were subsidised by UK government by approx. £10 billion per year, which distorts the price of electricity.

It would be helpful if the government published the wholesale cost of electricity for all generating sources, but as these are not in the public domain, it is difficult to have a meaningful debate on energy and on electricity prices.

C Scott, Edinburgh

Close embassies

I wonder why the UK and its European neighbours are not pulling their embassies out of Moscow and getting rid of the Russian Embassies in their capital cities, and this should include the Russian Consulate in Edinburgh.

All we ever hear from our politicians are fine words but we see few meaningful actions to hit the Kremlin where it matters Surely if we are serious about diplomacy and sanctions being the only weapons to be used against the Kremlin, then Embassy withdrawal and cessation of consular activity and the worldwide advertising of the fact, is an important part of that process.

Derek Farmer, Anstruther

Nessie’s next

First the Titanic, then the Bismarck and this week the Endurance. I suppose all that's left to find now is Nessie.

Henry Cruise, Co. Kildare, Ireland

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