I was pleased to have this letter published in the Herald today. Its got nothing to do with National Parks but everything to do with what’s happening in them, as this post will explain. Until our governments set up contact tracing and testing like South Korea and China have done, there will be no end to the health, social and economic crisis whether in our National Parks, Scotland, the wider UK or the world. Before moving on to National Parks, however, I want to outline the science that underpins what I have to say..
The science about how COVID-19 transmits and how this can be stopped
If you have not already done so, I would urge you to read the open letter from Professor Allyson Pollock urging the Scottish Government to set up Public Health contact tracing teams (see here) and the article, the hammer and the dance (see here) which shows how South Korea managed to stop the spread of Covid 19 without lockdown, in large part through contact tracing. While we now need some form of lockdown in the UK, the point is that contact tracing is what we need to do if we are to get out of the crisis.
If you want to avoid reading all the science, Dr Bruce Aylward, the senior adviser to the World Health Organization (WHO), summarised the issues succinctly in an internview with Time Magazine (see here):
“If we do the testing of every single case, rapid isolation of the cases, you should be able to keep cases down low. If you simply rely on the big shut down measures without finding every case, then every time you take the brakes off, it could come back in waves. So that future frankly, may be determined by us and our response as much as the virus.
What you want to do now is use that time well to get the testing in place, to get the systems in place, so that you can actually manage the individual level cases that are going to be fundamental to stopping this.”
There are hundreds of others of Public Health experts saying the same. The message couldn’t be clearer, but our public health professionals are being ignored and sidelined while our governments do nothing.
Its worse than that, however. Until February Public Health in England WAS taking the contact tracing approach:
However, as the virus spread, fed by a complete failure by our governments to control air travel, instead of increasing the resources available to public health, the UK government abandoned contact tracing completely and any attempt to suppress the virus. They used a new doctrine, that of “herd immunity”, to justify the decision. This was entirely driven by a desire to avoid costs, rather than science, and the Scottish Government unfortunately followed the UK government’s. Then, when both governments realised the scale of the disaster they had helped create, they both did a partial U-turn and have imposed a lockdown. That is now creating as many problems as it will address and there will be no solution to the crisis until public health is put back in charge of suppressing the virus.
One more bit of science from the Public Health England blog, which everyone who is worried about the risk of catching Covid 19 in the outdoors needs to read :
“When we talk about “close contact” it’s important to point out that we’re not looking for people the person may have passed on the street or in a shop, as the risk in these situations is very low. A close contact involves either face to face contact or spending more than 15 minutes within 2 metres of an infected person.”
Government attempts to shut-down enjoyment of the countryside are completely irrational
The science tells us that the risk of catching Coronavirus while outdoors is extremely low, as long as people avoid meeting in crowds (like football matches, the women’s demonstrations in Spain etc). In fact walking in the countryside is one of the safest things you can do. Yet this is now being branded by government as irresponsible. .
The hypocrisy and muddled thinking is nicely illustrated by the contrast between the state’s response to Prince Charles fleeing to Balmoral in the Cairngorms National Park and the police footage yesterday branding people who were walking in the Peak District National Park as irresponsible.
Its just last week that Kate Forbes, Scottish Government Minister for Finance (see here) and Fergus Ewing, Minister for the Rural Economy (see here), branded people going to the Highlands in campervans as totally irresponsible and were telling people with second homes not to go there because of the strain on health services. I look forward to Fergus Ewing being “furious” with Prince Charles for being so irrresponsible, but he won’t because now, because, according to the First Minister:
“Obviously there are people who have homes in Scotland.”
“People will choose to go to their homes.”
No mention here of Prince Charles breaching the ban on non-essential travel which is being enforced against everyone else.
Contrast how the Royal Family is being treated – and how they got a Covid 19 test in the heart of rural Aberdeenshire – with the state clampdown on other people going to National Parks, not to stay there and potentially take away resources from local people as Prince Charles has done, but just to get out for a walk. The drone footage from Derbyshire Police (see here) branding walkers as irresponsible was pure propaganda but was shown all over the BBC last night
The facts are those people walking in the Peak were not creating a risk to anyone, and the risks of anyone passing on coronavirus even in the carparks was completely and utterly minimal. Even if two people open their car doors at the same time, and their paths cross, the risk of passing on Covid 19 or any other virus is infinitessimal. What Public Health England said about how the virus is passed on is based on thousands of pieces of research. Yet all that is being ignored. .:
The police are now going to stop people going to the Lake District National Park (see here), while in the Cairngorms, second home for Prince Charles:
The contradictions in National Parks telling visitors to keep away is illustrated by thislatest advice by the Cairngorms National Park Authority. The CNPA are completely right to say recreation outside is vital for physical and mental health – more than ever before now that people are banned from meeting in indoor spaces – yet the state in effect is now trying to enforce a ban on outside recreation and iforcing people to take exercise in close proximity to each other.
The senseless consequences are demonstrated by what is happening in Glasgow. I live by Queen’s Park and h the last few days its been really busy, with everyone trying to get out a take a bit of exercise. This is a great thing – I have never seen so many runners, walkers and cyclists – but its almost impossible for people to observe the 2m social distancing rule all the time. The science tells us that this probably doesn’t matter in terms of spreading Covid 19, as the risks of passing it when passing by are so low, but one can see what will happen. The media – just as they did last weekend – will show videos/photos of crowded outdoor areas – the politicians will state this is irresponsible and then will try to lock everyone in their homes as has happened in parts of Italy. I disagree with the government’s claims that any contact with people is dangerous – the science says passing by or keeping a good distance is almost entirely safe – but given the government’s line, it would make far more sense to allow people into the countryside to places where they can disperse rather than corralling people who live in cities into a few public parks..
Unfortunately, in the panic, non-governmental organisations are adding to the panic with senseless restrictions. One example from our National Parks is the RSPB which first closed their car parks, but have now unlawfully declared ALL their land closed.
There may be a ban on travel, but access rights have NOT been suspended. The RSPB is effectively now trying to ban all people who live near their nature reserves from visiting them. Besides Abernethy, examples in our two National Parks include Inversnaid and the Loch Lomond Nature Reserve. This does NOTHING to help prevent the spread of COVID 19 and might just increase risks of transmission by herding local residents of the National Park into smaller areas (though the risk of this happening in rural areas is even smaller than in the towns because of the much smaller population).
As a further illustration of how the state – and one now has to include organisations like the RSPB in that – is misdirecting its efforts, yesterday while I was running around Pollok Park in Glasgow, as I usually do when at home, a helicopter hovered overhead for about 20 minutes. I have never experienced that before. They were clearly monitoring people who had gone to the Park. I then came across two police vehicles parked by the River Cart. No less than six police officers were in a field on the opposite side of the river where there are no paths. Two lads, who appear to have been fishing, were surrounded by four police officers. I wish I had had a camera as the police were about a foot apart and observing NO social distancing rules. The other two officers were walking over side by side to talk to someone walking their dog. I suspect that person had gone into the field because they were so fearful of meeting other people out for a walk. This is bonkers and a clear waste of resources that could be much better used elsewhere (for example forcing all supermarkets to put in place proper arrangements for social distancing). What it shows, however, is that all Outdoor Recreation, which is not exercise, is now banned.
Last week I received a letter from Butterfly Conservation about the coronavirus advising members who were isolating to “Take a break in nature and spend time outdoors butterfly spotting”. That was exactly the right advice, based on science, not panic. Greenspace plays an essential role in mental health but the person who keeps sane by going to sit on a park bench and feed the ducks now appears likely to be committing a criminal offence.
What needs to happen
As I stated in my letter to the Herald, because of government failure to keep tracing people who had coronavirus, some type of lockdown was necessary to suppress the growth of the virus. While a better prepared government might have been able to allow households and individuals to continue to visit the countryside (for example it would have made much more sense to test Prince Charles and his entourage BEFORE they went to Balmoral, not afterwards) and avoided a near total collapse of the rural economy, we are where we are. In order for government to sort out what measures are important and what not, a short-term travel ban will buy time. However, if government were to use that time wisely, a travel ban would be needed for no more than a couple of weeks.
Meantime, we should not be accepting measures that go beyond the travel ban, like the RSPB’s unlawful attempt to close their land or the Cairngorms National Park’s call for people not to go wild camping. If someone from the fair city of Perth wants to load their backpack with 7 days food and set off into the Cairngorms for a week by foot, we should have the sense to let them do that. They are doing no harm. The state should not be wasting its resources preventing people from doing this or other recreational activities like fishing or birdwatching.
Instead of these stupid responses, what we need is clear messages from government about how the risks of catching or passing on coronavirus in the outdoors is tiny, as long as you observe the current guidance about not mixing with people outside your household, and that they want to get people back into the countryside as soon as possible. Until that is allowed, it is hard to see how any cafe or restaurant could re-open.
There is an opportunity here for the Scottish Government to take a radically different approach to the UK government. There is no reason, with the right preparations, why in a couple of weeks time they could not start to lift travel restrictions into the countryside.
As long as some commonsense rules were introduced – and public toilets re-opened and properly cleaned – there is no reason why people should be stopped from taking DAY visits into National Parks for enjoyment or exercise. It should be quite possible to guide people away from hotspots like Duck Bay, where there could be a risk of the virus speading as on sunny days hundreds of people picnic there (as happened in England last weekend). The Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority has a large ranger service which could be used to help disperse people away from such hotspots. Problem averted! It just takes some will.
Managing overnight visits are a little more complicated, but campervans pose almost no risk, if self-sufficient – the problem is about the capacity of the NHS in the Highlands to cope in the event they did fall ill like Prince Charles. However, if the government put the resources into public health to enable proper testing and contact tracing, it would be possible to vet people wanting to stay in the Highlands before they went there (as should have happened with Prince Charles). That would make it easy for not just self-catering accommodations but hotels to also open again.
Such an approach would be infinitely preferable to the indefinite health crisis and the social and economic collapse that we are all facing as a result of the way the coronavirus is being mismanaged.
I’m not sure being this critical of the authorities in this manner, at this time, will achieve anything positive. In regard to tracking and testing; that ship has sailed. We are where we are and we should all heed the government advice to reduce contagion.
Please help your neighbours, in appropriate ways, the get through this.
I got my nurse registration back yesterday. I’m going back to work on my old ward as a staff nurse. Can’t claim not to be nervous.
Take care everyone.
Hi Mark, I think criticism at this time is more important than ever- after the run down of the NHS, its the only thing that is getting people like you the protective equipment you need to care for people safely. Well done you for going back but don’t sacrifice yourself, if you and others think conditions are unsafe, say so, criticise…………………Nick
Thank you Nick,
My thoughts : The generation that had survived the gas attacks of the First World war, and then lived through the flu pandemic in 1919 were fully aware of the risks of mass infection. Lessons learned led to the creation of “isolation hospitals” across the UK. Buildings and Camps built or requisitioned through WW2 were largely “mothballed” through the 1950’s and 1960’s as the threat of nuclear and biological warfare preoccupied officials. These people had grown up with lifelong awareness of the social consequences from total conflict. National service ended, and time-served policymakers retired. Vital lessons from the 20th century were set aside. Through recent decades successive Public spending cuts were justified to permit funding of the politically expedient burgeoning NHS. State-of-the-art facilities in vast “palaces” now offered free treatments from a “drop-down wish list” including a number of purely cosmetic optional life-enhancing possibilities. Health services became concentrated within huge urban “hubs”, themselves increasingly distant from many patients and the rural population. Now viral infections would be ‘sucked in’ and centralised within urban areas…never kept apart or isolated by distance . Dispersed”Civil Defence” isolation hospital facilities suitable to face “war” are part of history now. Even if revived, the urbanising of Britain over 50 years leaves scant possibility of finding trained staff across rural regions. One thing is increasingly obvious now – those 30 – 50 year olds of recent decades who in the main are responsible for making strategic decisions, took their “eye off the ball”. Perhaps in some rush to be elected , they wished to be seen to ‘modernise’ health care. As first hand experience of “total war” has thankfully been lost, a lack of awareness of the residual learning delivered through Social disasters through history has left the nation ill-prepared. By discounting the study of mechanisms for infectious disease control, (as a risk worth taking?) By failing to allocate funding for stocks and physical mechanisms to defeat it – Western nations were always certain to relive this possibility eventually ?
Sry Nick,
I thought this post was a bit of a ‘scatter gun’ approach to what has inevitably been a ‘scatter gun’ set of reactions. Neither achieve much in the way of clarity. One principal observation I have, however, is that it’s hardly fair to denounce the Scottish Government for following the Westminster Government’s decision to abandon test and trace. After all, like it or not, we are still a single entity as the ‘united’ kingdom, with not the slighted realistic possibility of imposing any form of order control between Scotland and the other three nations, so once Westminster made that misjudged decision, we were such with it.
Hi Dave, the important thing is people start thinking. In terms of your comment, the Scottish Government is almost completely in hock to the UK Government on the economic measures being put in place to reduce the extent of the economic collapse BUT it has complete control of public health. It might not be able to set up a strict border with England, but has in effect done so for the Western Isles and as a result the blanket restrictions on people living there, like the closure of schools, make almost no sense. What Allyson Pollock has been calling for is that instead of ALL decisions being controlled centrally, there could be local variations under public health (we will need that anyway to get out of lockdown) that might help bits of the rural economy. There is almost no rational argument at present, for example, for all shops and services like hairdressers in the Western Isles being shut down. To give people confidence about this, however, there need to be public health teams in place that can respond to any outbreaks, as happens in China. The power to do that lies with the Scottish Government NOT the UK Govt. Nick
The context for the measures being taken by the UK and Scottish governments is one in which the NHS is a hollowed out version of the flagship organisation it once was. Decades of intervention from the proponents of PPFI/PFI as the way to increase efficiency have left us with an NHS unable to respond adequately to a pandemic. Moreover, the common sense of political thought that supported a “business as usual” approach (including ignoring the science*) and when that became unsustainable, a focus on supporting business and employers before all else, contributed to the incoherent decision-making by our leaders.
I live in Leith and get my daily exercise in the park or on the local cycle paths. I have to pass within 2 metres of people to do this, but it takes a fraction of a second. The most risky moments are in the local shops. Sometimes security guards control entry while inside the cashiers have no face masks. Strange then, that if I cycle to the Pentlands, go for a walk and come home refreshed, I will be breaching the C-19 guidelines. Such behaviour could bring public shaming if the BBC needs another story to reinforce the “irresponsible British public needs tougher action” discourse. However, a few hours spent this way will be less risky than queueing for a checkout at Lidl.
Rather than telling people not to go outdoors, we could simply push the message of helping the NHS by not taking risks, of knowing and staying within our own limits. After all, we’ve had years of being told to keep fit as a way to stay healthy (and thus avoid putting strain on the NHS).
More than anything, though, I would like us to turn this “support the NHS” message into a demand that we fund the NHS, pay the staff properly and reject the Tory racism that targets migrants, on whom, of course. the NHS depends (including its very foundation!). The Tories will be planning another decade of austerity to pay for the C-19 induced crisis. That will not be good for the NHS – we need to be having a discussion about how to stop that happening.
*https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30185-9/fulltext
Last Sunday the LLNP shut off Duncan Mills Slipway when rangers could have easily kept boaters apart. The LLNP acted before lock down came in kayakers boaters tend to keep apart and what is wrong to use your car to visit our country side if you stay in your car and bring your own food .If you own your own holiday home then you will be paying council tax more than Prince Charles is paying The police won’t be long in putting the boot into the public. I was in the canary islands on the 28 Feb when it came over the news that a hotel was surrounded by armed police at the same time the Mide East was hanging their religious books all over their lands to potected them This told me all Governments new what was happening and what was going to happen and a British Prime Minister went on TV early March to tell the British public many people would die The Government only cared about the economy Britain did not stop international travel infact the Spanish keep us apart bording the plane when wee landed in Glasgow they pushed us together at the passport point A few weeks ago Britain let Italy and German foot ball fans into the country around 6000 .As for stock pilling food not a bad thing depending on how you look at it it means you don’t need to go out your house so useing our cars to go trips with food and not park close to others is good for our health
I think I agree with Dave Fallows about the scattergun approach, from Nick, but more importantly from the governments. As for our right to drive (many people don’t own cars) to exercise somewhere else, it is scarcely defensible when most people do not have that option. But fully support Nick in his, and our, freedom to criticise this government. A coherent, local or regional based approach as advocated by Alyson Pollock was probably correct, but would be locking the stable door after the horse has long ago bolted. and is no longer possible. Or maybe not. As regards breeding grounds and transmission of viruses, aeroplanes and the London Tube system would seem to me to take some beating. So while testing and tracking should lead the process now, we really need to consider the effects of cheap travel, and longer term, what do about the design and functioning of our cities, where essential workers cannot afford to live, and must be packed into inadequate and unhealthy public transport to come in every day to earn a crust.
Nick, at least this is a common sense approach, rather than the Brian Rix farce being promoted by our politicians and the press. The gov’t has said that we will be testing, within days or WEEKS! 25,000 people per day. The population of Scotland is about 5.5m so all testing will take……220days! Also you will be able to BUY the tests from Boots etc! Last week shopping in Morrisons and ASDA social distancing was a joke. Morrisons were limiting numbers, but once in the shop it was a free for all, while ASDA had no queueing, a security guard on each door, not 2m away from people, and the place was heaving. Checkout operators were wearing gloves but no masks, the queues at the till were sticking to at least 2m spacing, but unfortunately at one point three members of staff squeezed through the queue I was in! The police could have made a fortune in fines! The big problem is who is going to take control of the situation? We also do not know if it is possible to be re-infected!
Nick’s blog on outdoor recreation and National Parks raises the whole issue of the importance of exercise during the lock down period. Related to this but largely undiscussed by government information is the role of immunity to infections. Many people who die or suffer severely after being infected with the corona virus suffer not so much from the virus infection but secondary bacterial infections leading to pneumonia etc. Older people are more vulnerable because the strength of the immune system declines steadily with age from on 40. But immune age can vary widely for individuals of the same years – as much as 20 years either way. The whole issue is discussed in the most recent New Scientist of March 28 (Change your immune age. You’re only as young as your immune system). One thing that has consistently been shown to boost several important features of your immune system and hence resistance to those secondary bacterial infections is exercise. A large part of the decline in the immune system with age is attributed to physical inactivity. Ideally, to boost your immune system strongly, you should have a daily stepcount of 10,000 recommends the expert. That is a lot but it’s not all or nothing. The more exercise you have the more you boost the system and a less than average hillwalk of just over 5 miles should more than cover that stepcount given the climb ensures vigourous exercise. A longish ramble might cover it. So perhaps we should be encouraging people to visit the hills in our National Parks. Organisations like Mountaineering Scotland come out against it. Mountain Rescue teams might get overloaded when other demands are upon them. So, what to do – stay inactive if you are older and help overload hospital beds instead?
The whole attitude of the government is incomprehensible along with a lot of unexplained actions. Watching the UK Gov’t update yesterday they said 127,737 people had been tested with 19,522 testing positive. It has also been announced that testing is supposed to be 25,000 per day, only that it is at present 10,000 a day and hopefully the 25k by next week! I initially thought that the testing figures showed an infection rate of about 15%, BUT what has not been said is (1) who has been tested e.gMPs, Civil Servants, House of Lords and all their families? (2) What the criteria were for testing someone? (3) How long, and if it is necessary, will it take to test everyone? (1) it is a fair bet that the 127,737 tested will not be ordinary people because the way the system is currently operating if you go to hospital you almost certainly have it! (2) At what point does someone make the decision that the probability of a person having Covid19 is greater than it just being an ordinary cold? 108,215 people tested did not have Covid 19, suggesting that in fact all those tests were wasted and could have been used on more at risk people such as doctors and nurses, and (3) If it is necessary to test everyone, at a rate of 25K tests per day it will take 7.28 YEARS to test the whole of the UK! That means that wholesale testing is a total nonsense and in fact implies that testing is only of limited use! I don’t know what the answer is, but one thing I am sure of is that the way we are progressing at present makes no sense whatsoever.
Yes, an important discussion but surely the key is testing. If there is a body of people who demonstrated the antibodies to the virus then they would have shown a high degree of immunity. Someone in such category could be of great service. If I was in that category, I would gladly drive anyone, perhaps those most vulnerable to a suitable outdoor venue near me.I`m sure thousands of outdoor folk would feel the same. Yes,we should be getting outdoors and helping as much as we can in getting others out as safely as possible.
Undoubtedly there can be valid criticism of some travelling but the judgemental tone encouraged in some quarters is divisive. I am almost afraid to say I`ve been out a lot walking and cycling in the Cairngorms National Park. The camper vans seem to have gone. The local food store is OK. In the main, folk behave reasonably if asked.
But ,at the heart of the whole problem is the ignorance of the number and distribution and infection status of individuals. We have been caught unprepared. Do we in Scotland or in the wider UK have the capability of producing valid testing in quantity and at speed?