I was not expecting the Scottish Government to relax the current “rules” on Outdoor Recreation when Nicola Sturgeon made her announcement in the Scottish Parliament last week and I was right. While P 1-3 children will be allowed back to school this week, a welcome move but one which has some risks (there is now some evidence from England that young children can spread Covid-19 in schools (see here)), families are still very restricted where they can take their children. Those who live in local authority areas away from the sea, for example, are still not officially allowed to take their children to the beach.
While the Scottish Government has rightly argued it should put the welfare of children first and allowed children under 12 to continue to meet up in groups, it continues to have a blind spot when it comes to the benefits of outdoor recreation to people of all ages, whether children, young people or adults. This post takes a look at the issues in the light of the latest evidence.
The evidence on spread of Covid-19 and Outdoor Recreation
I must admit I was slightly nervous about the hundreds of people who gathered in my local park to enjoy the snow and ice on the pond because, although I believed the risks of spreading Covid-19 were low, based on my reading of scientific research, there is never no risk and had there been an outbreak of Covid-19 I feared current restrictions would be tightened. It was therefore very re-assuring to read this week (see here) from a real expert that to date there is no evidence that people gathering in places like beauty spots have been responsible for outbreaks of Covid-19:
And,
This chimes with my own experience. I go running every day, have done for over 5 years now, and a reasonable estimate is that since restrictions were first introduced, I have passed an average of 50 – 100 people each time I have been out. Sometimes its been a handful, sometimes 300 or more, but in the c330 days since lockdown first started that comes to a minimum 16,500 people. I am careful, I generally avoided meeting people indoors even when lockdown was relaxed and outdoors I swerve round people if I can and if I meet friends and stop to talk I keep 2m physical distance. Nevertheless I must have had dozens of momentary encounters of less than 2m, although many fewer than those I have had during my weekly trips to the supermarket. I have not caught the virus yet. I suspect that if researchers looked at people living in towns who are lucky enough like me to live in households where no-one needs to have contact with others indoors, but who get outdoors frequently, very few if any would have caught Covid.
The evidence, I suggest, should tell us several things:
- that the risks of transmission of Covid-19 outdoors is even lower than for young children in schools and it therefore makes no sense for the Scottish Government to continue to ban families from visiting the beach:
- that the Scottish Government had NO need to be worried about people “flocking” to beauty spots last summer (see here) and should not have allowed rural infrastructure to be shut down;
- that the action taken by the police last spring and summer against people who were out of doors, whether this was fixed penalty notices to visitors to Balloch (see here) or using the criminal law was not just disproportionate, it was unnecessary (see here) and as a consequence all the penalty notices and charges that resulted should now be annulled;
- and, that our Public Authorities should have opened up far earlier than they did last summer (see here).
Unfortunately, the current guidance on Outdoor Recreation in Scotland fails to reflect this evidence and is a guddle.
The current law and guidance on outdoor recreation
While the revised Coronavirus Regulations issued on 4th January introduced new restrictions on meeting people outdoors, they also added “outdoor recreation” to the list of “reasonable excuses” for leaving home (see here). This means that people can travel up to five miles outwith their local authority area not just for exercise but for recreational activities like birdwatching or enjoying the scenery safe in the knowledge that this is quite legal.
The First Minister failed to mention outdoor recreation explicitly in her speech on the new restrictions on 4th January: “Unlike the lockdown last year, the frequency of outdoor exercise is not being limited” though she did say it was important “for physical and mental health that we can get outdoors for fresh air and exercise as much as possible”. No-one would know from the reference to “fresh air” that the law had changed to enable people to travel for outdoor recreation as well as exercise.
That might not matter if the guidance on the Scottish Government website was accurate. The Stay at Home infographic (see here), however, while stating you shouldn’t meet more than one other person for recreation, fails to say anything about either exercise or outdoor recreation under travel:
The fuller “Stay at Home Guidance” (see here) does slightly better, explaining the law for exercise but again makes no mention of Outdoor Recreation.
“There is a list of examples of reasonable excuses below………………
- local outdoor informal exercise such as walking, cycling, golf, or running (in groups of up to 2 people, plus any children under 12, from no more than 2 households). Exercise can start and finish at a place in your local authority area (or up to 5 miles from its boundary), but you should travel no further than you need to reach to a safe, non-crowded place to exercise in a physically distanced way.
Throughout, there is a tension between the advice, which generally urges people to stay as close to home and travel as little as possible and the law which, if you are lucky enough to live in a rural area, entitles you can travel miles for exercise or recreation: “Although you can leave home for these purposes, you should stay as close to home as possible…………………Travel no further than you need to reach to a safe, non-crowded place to exercise in a socially distanced way. To minimise the risk of spread of coronavirus it is crucial that we all avoid unnecessary travel.”
The last sentence is simply not true when it comes to travelling for outdoor recreation.
What needs to change
Here is Mark Woolhouse again:
“This is not a subtle picture,” he said [to the UK Parliament’s Committee]. “The published studies were already quite clear at the time … but after the reaction to my comment I am now concerned that this is not fully understood and maybe this is something the politicians do need to factor more into their thinking. As they make their plans to get us out of this, maybe they do need to be reappraised of where the risks really lie.”
His is not the only voice, here is Lucy Yardley, a professor of health psychology at the University of Southampton who sits on Sage:
“It’s a really important message, and this is the right time to push it home,” she said. “The difference between indoor and outdoor is huge. Every report about restrictions and enforcement focused on outdoor contacts distracts from the places where the transmission is really happening.”
Contrast what the science is saying to the political position of the Scottish Government, as announced by Nicola Sturgeon last week, which starts with the obvious:
“Lockdown has been working”
Before wrongly concluding that:
“Even a slight easing of restrictions now could cause cases to start rising rapidly again”.
The mistake here is the failure to distinguish what is important (minimising occasions when people meet indoors), from what is not (people meeting outdoors). The risks of Covid-19 being spread by people “travelling” out to countryside for a walk have always been minimal – so long as they stay outdoors – and the increased risks of four, rather than two people from two households meeting up outdoors would also appear to be tiny. Despite the evidence and despite the success of the vaccination programme, however, Nicola Sturgeon last week indicated that “because of the new, more infectious variant, our exit from lockdown is likely to be even more cautious than it was last summer”. That caution might be justified when it comes to indoor venues opening up, but it shouldn’t be the case for the outdoors.
The muddle continued when Ms Sturgeon equated people going to stay in hotels with people going to stay in self-catering accommodation: “we are likely to advise against booking Easter holidays, either overseas or within Scotland, as it is highly unlikely that we will have been able to fully open hotels or self catering accommodation by then.” Hotels and self-catering (and indeed second homes) should be treated as totally different cases: the first – like re-opening bars and cafes – risks bringing people into contact with others indoors, the other doesn’t. The benefits of opening up self-catering to enable all the health and social care staff who have been put through the mill in this crisis to get a proper break should be obvious, but instead Ms Sturgeon stated that in the summer “staycations might be [possible] – but this will depend on the data nearer the time“.
Ms Sturgeon’s argument then moved from “in a world where we can’t do everything immediately”, which is true, to “we will need to decide what matters most to us. That’s why you will hear me and other Ministers talk increasingly about trade-offs”. That is false. The Scottish Government could fix what is safe now, but instead argues that “being able to get children back to education may mean the rest of us living with some other restrictions for longer”. Again that might be true for going indoors to pubs and restaurants but is not the case for outdoor recreation, there need be no trade off between schools and outdoor recreation. Indeed as I argued at the start of this post it would be in the interests of the mental well being of children and families to let them travel to get outdoors.
The wider failure to understand or appreciate outdoor recreation
Sadly, I have heard no-one in the Scottish Government who is prepared to advocate for outdoor recreation, whether from a Covid-safety perspective or more generally. Despite some rural areas being overwhelmed by visitors last year and despite the likelihood that demand will be even higher this year, the Scottish budget for 2020/21 included a paltry £6.2m in funding for rural infrastructure:
“The Scottish Government will provide £55.1 million for tourism. Recognising the acute impact seen by rural communities, it will double the Rural Tourism Infrastructure Fund, to £6.2 million, helping communities make improvements to cope with increased visitors, such as parking areas, visitor facilities and recycling points. This will support the resumption of domestic tourism when the time is right.” (see here).
Our population is estimated to be 5.46 million so the budget provides £10 a head for promoting visitors to come to Scotland but just over £1 a head on infrastructure to support that. No wonder parts of government, like the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority, act as if they would prefer people to be locked in the cities indefinitely rather than provide the sort of infrastructure needed to enable them to enjoy the countryside.
To provide an unusual perspective to Nick’s post. Since Christmas those who live all across the remoter Highland regions have been subjected to exactly the same level of urban focussed restrictions as everyone else. While there have been Covid cases highlighted in the outer Islands, and a very small number within some outlying highland communities, the way the infection totals are presented by agencies serves only to mislead politicians.
The Highland area includes Inverness and surroundings . The vast majority of recent cases have been recorded in major centres of population. However, think of this. Over the past 8 weeks , it has only been necessary for us to go shopping twice, one trip combined with a hospital appointment. We shop for others and they for us. We exercise daily where few ever are, but except for the 100 mile round trip to restock at a supermarket 50 miles away, we will have seen less than 30 other people in total, and spoken to a mere handful beyond local close family. The same must be true of thousands across Highland Scotland’s coastal and Upland regions.
There has been no acceptance of this within the endless torrent of dictat, emanating from Bute House. Looking over at statistics and Blog and news films made in recent months in Sweden and Norway, where the population were given clear science based advice, is enlightening . ( No convoluted ‘guddle’ of conflicting statements, flagged up as possible options well in advance, seemingly intended to ensure a repeat “look at me aren’t I doing well? ” audience. ) The Scandinavians appear to have Politicians who are able to trust their electorate to act intelligently and sensibly, respecting others in their home areas and to behave themselves. This example of how Covid fears might have been managed across Scotland – had Scots voters elected Politicians who thought we were deserving of trust ? – has been very instructive. ( A few short weeks remain, and we should have another chance ?
Just to pick up one really important point from this, the experience of people in rural areas and cities is totally different, in the period you have seen 30 people I have probably passed 1-200 times the number. That is really important for how risks are judged, if you pass lots of people like I do – and pick up the new behavioural norms of stepping into the road off the pavement – you learn that the risks are manageable, but if you don’t see many people, you have know way of working that out from your experience. There are of course people in towns who are too frightened to go out but I can understand the fear people living in remote areas may have of visitors and that reinforces the need for government to explain the different risks clearly.
Nick, I sense an implication in your response that somehow those who live in remote areas are ill-informed, or lack sufficient imagination to enjoy a true perspective in this matter. With access to the internet and daily contacts provided to former colleagues, and new media spread all around the globe, some of us, (without so many distractions just now !) may be a lot better informed than you suggest? Population density and need to walk past others plays no part in founding a reasoned view that behind the current ‘one-size-fits-all’ blanket response to Scotland’s viral risks, lurks the sinister urgency of pure politics? The need to be seen to be fair to all, and the constant use quasi scientific “spin”combined with ’emotion speak’ to quell the masses, has disproportionately affected all remote communities. Consequences to hospitality, once again so blandly expected to host a throng of visitors this summer, as they did last July and August, pass well below the Bute House “radar” . Of course the urban populations need holidays, however unwise such mass movement will remain. The law of unintended consequences played a large part in what then occurred across Scotland in September and October last year. Justified by patronage- “remoter communities need our holiday spend, so we can overrule all their concerns” – Rural communities represent such an insignificant minority viewpoint, they can be drowned out by clamour from electorate within urban groups -( clamour to reopen pubs, shouts for reopening of self catering hospitality, gyms and food outlets.) As I posted last year. The First lockdown imposed wholly draconian and scientifically unnecessary restrictions on the countryside. Places were forced to stay closed when they might easily have been carefully open, just as safely as became “permitted urgently” later. Yet right across urban areas the chances that the virus will ever be reduced to such low level that the risk of transferring it to indoor accommodation, where it never has been present, will always remain. By all means come on Holiday , use and respect the vast outdoor spaces, but do not ignore local feeling about this. Self catering by then might have safely been open for many weeks already, with no greater risk than existed early last summer. Yet now, this 2nd time round, reopening only permitted when told to, just to satisfy urban throngs, will never will be entirely about gratitude for fresh and generous holiday “spend” at all. Memories – of last year’s extraordinary pressures on scant facilities through a few short weeks, and the wider viral spread that manifested itself in the autumn -are longer than that. ( and yes,I did hear that Scotland is still heralded as a free country in which everywhere “belongs” to us all !) Kind regards,Tom
Hi Tom, I didn’t mean to imply that, rather the opposite, because to me lived experience is as important as information, particularly when so much information is manipulated. The trick is understanding is to tie the two together- that is what parkswatch is all about, using evidence of what is happening on the ground to make sense of information and vice versa. What I was trying to acknowledge is that the experience of living in rural areas is NOT the same as living in urban areas and when it comes to Covid-19 until you have experienced how other people respond, whatever your scientific understanding, its quite understandable people may be be fearful as well as cautious. That says nothing about how well informed people are in either urban or rural areas. You can turn this the other way round: anyone who experienced the pressures in rural areas last summer, whether resident or visitor, would with a little thought realise that the £6.2m that has now been allocated to the Rural Infrastructure Fund is totally inadequate to address the issues despite what the Scottish Government claims
Articles like this run against the grain of modern journalism because it is researched, argued well and best of all suggests clear, sensible, workable ways to get society on its feet.
To my mind the First Minister’s behaviour and attitude over these last few weeks has been nothing more than condescending with her platitudes and patronising apologies. Now, she is using the situation to keep Scottish citizens on tenterhooks to her comments and in doing so she is keeping her name in peoples’ minds as we head towards May’s election.
Yet it was the First Minister who berated the PM for continuing with Brexit whilst she now maintains that Scottish MSP elections can forge ahead when she keeps the country unnecessarily in a state of paralysis.
Being outdoors poses no serious or even recognisable health risk of Covid cross-infection and I for one will make recreation decisions based on my evaluation of risk to me and others…even if it means I travel afar to beach!
She’s a control freak. She’s using C19 as a shield to block any of the current threats to her dictatorship. She’s never climbed a hill, gone skiing, fishing, sailing, cycling or participated in any kind of outdoor activities in her life. She doesn’t even pretend to read anything apart from trash fiction and political memoirs. The woman isn’t human and has no experience or authority to interfere in anyone’s life.
We had zero Covid during the Summer despite everything being open. Her failure to close the borders and quarantine visitors from outwith Scotland had resulted in 4,000 deaths.
Lockdowns don’t work. If they did then we wouldn’t have a higher death rate than Sweden or Florida or anywhere else which has had an open society with minimal restrictions.
With the elections in May just watch out for Sturgeon to give us all good news to get out and vote and vote offten.
The best news sturgeon could give us is her resignation soon hopefully
They are already pushing postal voting, what C19 restrictions will be in place for the count?
Another well researched post in possibly the only place where these points were being made many months ago. The Bournemouth beach story was hopelessly distorted at the time. The media used telephoto lenses flattening the perspective making groups look closer together than they were. Little used images taken by a Sky news drone showed that there were gaps between family groups. A similar image of the promenade at Brighton was completely debunked by one local photographer. The problem is conflict between local residents and tourists sells stories. When the Lake District opened up news crews were scattered around at popular locations waiting for something to film. There was an issue at Bournemouth but it was on the packed trains out of London, not through people taking exercise or sitting on a beach, but this was hardly mentioned because it didn’t pit locals against visitors. I also recall a health official in Cornwall being interviewed where she said that there was very little evidence of visitors introducing the virus. All the evidence for increased cases was from indoor mixing by residents when that was allowed. The longer restrictions are kept around outdoor recreation the greater the impact will be when the pent up demand is fully released- leading to yet more conflict between residents and visitors in rural areas. It is almost as if SG has no advisors on this issue.
They have now announced that while they will probably revert to “levels” after April, the threshold of maximum number of “cases” (i.e. positive tests) for each level will be halved. Even at that the current level of positive tests would put all of Scotland in level 3 at the most, not 4+ which is where we are at the moment.
The threshold for “level zero” is basically no positive tests, but I wonder how many people realise that “level zero” does not mean no restrictions, it is not “near normal” by any means.
Every night the BBC puts up a screen with the latest number of “cases” which the newsreader invariably reads out as “infections”. The figure is the number of positive tests, many of whom are asymptomatic.
What’s the agenda?