Having repealed the legal restrictions on travel on the 26th April, eight days ago the Scottish Government re-imposed them (see here for the Statutory Instrument) on people living in Moray and Glasgow, after deciding not to move these two local authorities to Level 2 like the rest of the country. One day it was perfectly legal for people to travel out of Level 3 areas for exercise or outdoor recreation, the next residents of Glasgow and Moray officially only had a reasonable excuse for doing so if they travelled no more than five miles beyond their local authority boundary and started and finished their recreation at the same spot. Initially presented as a temporary delay in the planned relaxation of restrictions, what actually happened is that the Scottish Government changed the law limiting outdoor recreation in Level 3 areas back to what it was a month ago.
This doesn’t mean that it is actually illegal to travel further than five miles outwith a Level 3 local authority area for outdoor recreation but, if challenged, people living in such areas would need to be able to persuade the police and the courts that they did in fact have a reasonable excuse for doing so. Establishing that might not be too difficult because the restrictions make even less sense than they did seven weeks ago (see here).
First, the evidence that Covid-19 is much less likely to be transmitted outdoors becomes ever more convincing. Linda Bauld, the omnipresent Professor of Public Health from Edinburgh, recently stated that you were 20 times less likely to catch Covid outdoors that indoors. There may of course be exceptions, like singing crowds of football fans, but the science and data behind this explains why the Scottish Government has continued to allow people in G41 and G42, despite the recent spike in Covid cases, to continue to meet and drink outdoors, play sport etc. The important point to note here is that, whatever the risks of these activities, the risks of outdoor recreation in the countryside is generally even lower and going out for a walk with your household is probably as risk free as anything you could do. Whatever the merits of other restrictions on travel, that try and stop people going indoors for example, those that affect outdoor recreation are not proportionate. They are therefore contrary to our fundamental human rights (see here).
Second, basing restrictions on local authority boundaries is clearly discriminatory because it fails to differentiate areas which have the virus from those that don’t. There appear to be far more cases of Covid-19 in East Renfrewshire, for example, than North East Glasgow but if you live in East Renfrewshire you can travel anywhere you like in Scotland for outdoor recreation (except Glasgow), whereas if you live in Drumchapel the message from the Scottish Government is that the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park should be out of bounds.
Third, restricting to people to their local authority boundary makes no sense as a means of preventing the spread of the virus when it comes to outdoor recreation. Effectively what the Scottish Government’s rules imply is that its better for people from north east Glasgow to come to G41 for a drink than to go out into the countryside for a walk. Luckily, most people aren’t so stupid and many are not voting with their feet.
Fourth, consider that thousands of people are still travelling into Glasgow to work each day, some to the Covid hotspots of G41 and G42. It is perfectly legal for these good folk to then travel wherever they want in their leisure time, whether for outdoor recreation or to take advantage of the facilities that have opened up in Level 2 areas. Where is the logic here?
The World Health Organisation has consistently argued that lockdowns, which have severe economic, health and social consequences, should only be used as a last resort. While imposing restrictions based on post code rather than local authority boundaries would make more sense and be fairer than what is happening at present, an effective track and trace system would be better still.
In principle, the only restrictions on outdoor recreation should be applied those who actually have the virus or have been in contact with such people and pose a risk of spreading it or have travelled from abroad. In that respect the Scottish Government’s announcement of an “enhanced contact tracing system”, in which not just contacts, but contacts of contacts would be traced in the G41 and G42 postcodes, is most welcome. With such a system in place, and a large proportion of the population vaccinated, there really is no justification for trying to restrict the rights of people in Glasgow and other areas where there are outbreaks of Covid-19 from travelling to another area to go for a walk.
Just what I said they would do. There are also apparently restrictions on all of us travelling to certain areas of England, but this has only been mentioned in passing on the BBC news website as far as I can see – and I have no idea how this would be detected or enforced.
Which raises the question, are we expected to check the scotgov website in minute detail every morning before going out to find out if any new restrictions have been imposed, and what happens if you don’t and are caught flouting a restriction you had no idea existed?
If I give my details so that I can enter a pub, cafe or restaurant (which I have no intention of doing until the nonsense is scrapped, whenever that may be) are the police likely to turn up and go through everyone’s details and arrest anyone who is not supposed to be there? On the basis of previous actions this scenario seems horribly plausible.
It became blatantly clear that both in UK and Scotland, the media was totally transfixed by enabling authorities to get away with dubious restrictions based on dubious science & reasoning. This from 2020 yet the nonsense has been allowed to remain embedded in our mindset. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32064-X/fulltext – and these latest shenanigans bear little relevance nor will they have much impact on how Covid-19 behaves.
Further, some outdoor organisations have, it would seem, have been under a govt. directed cosh which has banned them from lobbying govt. to re-think its approach to managing outdoor access.
This has had a knock-on effect where, even now, some activity clubs have to maintain ridiculously low numbers and demand name/contact of participants; even outdoors! It’s a process of maintaining ‘fear’ as a mechanism of control.
What is fast developing is a bureaucratic swamp least of all underlined by the hundreds of lorry drivers rightfully & dutifully driving across the UK and throughout Scotland with totally acceptable impunity whilst crazy, illogical and ultimately unreasonable restrictions remain creating a bitty, damaging and increasingly foolish roadmap.
I just wonder if the cloak of Covid is sufficient anymore to manage citizens who are washed out with the patronising wishes & apologies from our govt.?
We could not have predicted 40 years ago, how the mindset of the “can do” generation, then in charge, would be subverted. Who could have predicted Authority figures who had grown up through the war years, would have their “can do” values downgraded so totally. Covid has of course brought the modern curtailment of civil liberties into sharp focus. But in fact the insidious move towards this point was up and running years before that. The move to create “mind set” barriers and suggest governing body qualification was the only and the best way to learn any outdoor activity began in the 1970’s. It has created a burgeoning industry where the completion of courses in every subject under the sun, is now justified as the only acceptable means. Where the “end” lies..? well, I think we can now see the “end game” whistle blowing.
As the steady migration of the population out of the countryside continued,often forced and due to mechanisation of the farm jobs that were once so plentiful, the level of innate skills built up through generations who lived with the outdoors everyday has been diluted and lost. The truth, that ignorance is fed by “NOT knowing what you don’t know” is now ruling our lives. It is now too easy for classroom trained “authority figures” peer reviewed “professors ” of this and that to dominate the media.Their own wider ignorance belittling those who once were educated to try a challenge, go beyond and explore their own potential in their own ways.
Now we are supposed to feel guilty if we head out – in their eyes- “improperly equipped”. If we lack some ‘wish list’ of fabulous kit an old highland shepherd would have scoffed at. we are foolish. An older generation would have ridiculed you for carrying so much. If anyone has not yet read “the Canoe Boys” written in the 1930’s perhaps they should. It tells of a time when “can do” was tolerated, and common sense about your personal limits for adventure in the great outdoors prevailed.
A lesson learned in the face of real challenge is a lesson indeed, one never forgotten. After all, 80 years ago a generation climbed around the Himalayas in hobnailed boots and tweed, and, surprisingly to us today, most of them -usually – returned! It did not take a book of RULES to stop them.They would be appalled that today..right now….. it does.
Your comment – “ It is now too easy for classroom trained “authority figures” peer reviewed “professors ” of this and that to dominate the media.Their own wider ignorance belittling those who once were educated to try a challenge, go beyond and explore their own potential in their own ways.” – is so accurate.
There’s a novel by Sebastian Faulks – A Week in December – with a character who holds fort at a dinner table. He explains that his view on the demise of proper learning started when the curriculum dropped learning facts and the ability to make connections amongst these facts and was replaced by ‘learning how to learn’ and self-evaluation. The generation first exposed to this then became the educators & policy makers who knew nothing else but processes. They then continued the devaluation of facts and skills so that today we have little substance other than data driven assessable learning. Outdoor learning is a buzz word but in many situations is ineffective and is more about a school putting it into their evaluation.
Mountaineering Scotland should hang their heads in shame, they turned from the business development department of the outdoor industry, into a government mouth piece in the blink of an eye….so much for representing their membership.