It’s high time Holyrood diverged from the UK’s handling of this crisis

I lost a younger brother to this dreadful virus a couple of weeks ago – he was self-employed, lived and worked for most of his life in Ayrshire. None of the family were able to attend his funeral as we are all in our seventies, living on an island and in lockdown. We had to depend on his friends to organise his funeral.

READ MORE: Ruth Wishart: Will no-one hold UK Government to account over virus failings?

I do not wish this terrible contagion to affect anyone, even Boris Johnson and his cohorts. I think it’s high time Holyrood started to diverge from the UK’s handling of this pandemic. Nicola is doing a competent enough job, but her government should show more backbone and stand up to these right-wing elites in Westminster who constantly churn out these phoney platitudes and mendacious promises with regard to testing and protective equipment, which many in the frontline services have still not been supplied with.

Our son works on lifeline services on the west coast and as part of his job its virtually impossible to keep to the two-metre rule. When they go home on leave or on rest period, they should be tested for the virus, but he has more chance of winning the lottery than being tested for Covid-19. It’s an utter disgrace that many in the NHS have still not been tested, and probably the most neglected of all are the Scottish care home workers who do a marvellous job. Something has to change or we are all facing a very bleak future, with more people having to grieve for their loved ones.

Best wishes Ruth Wishart, and more power to you elbow!

Seumas MacArthur
Islay

THE World Health Organisation is very clear that, in times of pandemic, the best, most effective defence is to test for the spread of disease, and then isolate. If you don’t know where it is, you can’t fight it, and if you don’t know who has it, you cannot prevent them from spreading it further.

But the UK has not followed this mass testing approach: in fact our now ex-Chief Medical Officer recently described testing as a “distraction”.

The UK has adopted a policy of social distancing, which – despite the occasional lurid headlines to the contrary – I think most people are complying with to the best of their ability.

But the number of people contracting the virus is still increasing hugely, the number of deaths in Scotland is doubling roughly every 2.5 days, it will be about seven times higher in a week at present rates, and research suggests that total UK deaths could eventually be in the hundreds of thousands.

Scotland is currently testing at the rate of about six tests per positively identified case, slightly more than the UK’s four tests per case, but very much short of Germany’s 23 tests or South Korea’s 46 tests. Those countries which had to deal with the SARS outbreak in 2003 are notably testing at much higher rates, some upwards of 50, or even 100 times identified cases, presumably based on hard experience.

Surely it is long past time for a concerted effort to frequently test our medical and frontline staff, to protect them and their patients, and to test and isolate everyone who has come into contact with anyone who either tests positive or starts to show symptoms.

Once we know who has the virus, and who has had it, and now has immunity, we might be able to ease current restrictions on movement, which otherwise might go on for a very long time, with all the disastrous consequences.

It would seem to me, and I claim absolutely no specialist knowledge whatsoever, that following the advice of the World Health Organisation, and the example of those countries who have fairly recent experience of dealing with lethal pandemics, becomes more of a no-brainer with every day that passes.

Les Mackay
Dundee

I ALWAYS thought the Scottish Government had control of the health policy in Scotland, but it seems as if the UK Government is being held responsible for Scotland’s handling of this horrible virus. Am I right in thinking Scotland could have set out a different policy for the virus, or in times of crisis do the UK Government naturally take control If Scotland was unfettered by the UK on health policy why, say, could it not have aligned its response more closely with the EU handling of Covid-19?

Alan Craigon
via email

HERE is a summary of a media briefing along the lines of that desired by David Smart (Letters, April 14).

FM: “In a moment I will update you on the latest statistics related to the current level of positive cases of Covid-19 and the sad number of deaths. However, for the moment I want to deal with a number of pressing matters relating to coverage given to certain matters by representatives of the assembled media, which need to be taken to task.

“These relate to Prince Charles, the previous CMO, camper vans, the problems of a Labour peer travelling to the Scottish Highlands and UK Cabinet member travelling to a number of his many secondary residences.

“Now, I realise that there will be people out there who might think that in the in the grand scheme of things, dealing with these issues could be seen as a petty-minded distraction from the small matter of dealing with a national crisis. Nevertheless, I’m so bloody annoyed by them, I can’t let them pass.”

Time to get real.

Douglas Turner
Edinburgh

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