When asked a few days ago about deaths from Covid in
Scotland Nicola Sturgeon replied “They are still much higher than we want them
to be.. . but they are lower than the excess deaths in England.” This sums up
the SNP and its supporters perfectly. They might as well be renamed the “We are
doing better than England” Party. Not that they are obsessed by England, of
course, and not that their obsession is remotely hostile.
But what does doing better mean? It can’t simply be a
matter of counting the number of deaths, after all the size of a country’s
population must be taken into account. One way of counting is to work out the number
of excess deaths per million.
The UK has suffered approximately 891 excess deaths
per million
England has suffered approximately 921 excess deaths
per million
Scotland has suffered approximately 841 excess deaths
per million
We are not finished. There will be more deaths. But
given that the northern parts of Britain are slightly behind places like London
it is likely that Scotland will have a similar number of deaths to the UK
average.
There is little doubt that Britain is doing relatively
poorly compared to some parts of the world. It might be argued that this is
because we locked down too late, but Sweden has half the number of excess
deaths per million and they didn’t fully lock down at all.
Some countries closed their borders very early and have
kept them closed throughout the crisis. This has saved lives. It is senseless
that we are imposing a 14-day quarantine now but didn’t do so in January.
Nicola Sturgeon’s we are doing better than England
strategy may be popular with some Scottish voters, but it is hardly a fair
comparison. Scotland has two major advantages over England that she never
mentions.
Scotland has a population density of 65 persons per
square kilometre
England has a population density of 430 persons per square
kilometre.
But we know that one of the major factors in the spread
of Covid is population density. It is for this reason that there have been zero
deaths in the Outer Hebrides, but 1262 in Greater Glasgow and Clyde. People in
big cities are far more likely to catch Covid and die than people in rural areas.
The non-white population of Scotland is 4%.
The non-white population of England is 14%.
But we know that ethnic minorities are massively more
likely to die of Covid than white people. England has millions more of these
people than Scotland does.
If we adjust for just these two factors it may be that
Sturgeon’s assertion that she is doing better than England is dubious indeed.
Scotland ought to be doing massively better than England given that we are six
times less crowded than they are and only 4% of Scots are from ethnic
minorities.
Where did things go wrong? Once we had let Covid into
Britain and it was spreading freely, we could either have tried to follow
Sweden with a loose voluntary policy of social distancing or we could have done
what we did. If we had had no lockdown then it is likely that the short-term
death toll would have been higher throughout Britain. After all Sweden’s death
toll is higher than its neighbours. But the lockdown was introduced at the same
time everywhere in Britain and obeyed by the vast majority. It’s hard to see
what we could have done better.
The very high death toll in Britain is due to care
homes. Elderly patients across Britain were sent back from hospitals to care
homes when they had Covid in order to free up wards. This has been a catastrophe
everywhere, but particularly in Scotland where deaths in care homes exceed
deaths in hospitals.
Politicians cannot reasonably be blamed for the spread
of Covid after lockdown within the community, but the decision to send elderly
patients back to care homes did not have to be made. They could for instance
have been sent to empty hotels. Half of
the Covid cases deaths in Scotland were due to the decision made by Nicola Sturgeon
and her colleagues. She had limited information, some faulty assumptions about
how the disease spreads, but the decision was hers and hers alone. It is no use
saying we are doing better than England when half of the death toll in Scotland
is due to the SNP.
More serious than this however is Sturgeon’s decision
not to ease lockdown in line with the UK Government. The scientific experts at
SAGE had already advised that lockdown could only last a short amount of time,
but Sturgeon chose to extend it for political reasons. Outside care homes the level
of Covid in Scotland is similar to other parts of Britain. The number of deaths
in the Central Belt is far higher than anywhere else. Even if it made sense to
maintain lockdown in Glasgow, it made no sense to maintain it in the Outer Hebrides.
Sturgeon’s approach has been to ease lockdown later
and more slowly than in England. But this has not merely tried the patience of
many Scots and led to widespread breaking of the rules it has also cost lives.
Lockdown is a double-edged sword. By stopping the spread
of contagion in the short term it may save some lives, but by damaging the economy,
the physical and mental health of the population it will also cost lives in the
long run.
For this reason, it is too early to judge the success
or failure of the Swedish experiment. More Swedes may have died in the short
term, but Sweden may benefit physically mentally and educationally from keeping
the country open in the long run.
So too, the fact that England has moved earlier than
Scotland in easing lockdown, opening schools and getting the economy moving,
will have a long-term effect on health, wellbeing and life expectancy.
It is therefore too early to judge whether Scotland
has done better than England. Only when we find out how lockdown has changed
our society will we discover how many lives lockdown saved and how many it
cost.
The task now is to get our schools open. Not one Scot under
14 has died from Covid and only 24 Scots aged 44 and under have died. The risk
of opening schools even without any social distancing would be less than
driving to the school in a car. Parents
who refuse to send their pupils to school are more in need of education than
their children.
I am not a lockdown sceptic, but proportionally fewer Swedes
died without lockdown and largely keeping their country open than Scots who
kept it closed. Sturgeon's desire to be different from England is what is
keeping us inside not science. If she doesn’t get Scotland back to work soon, she
will kill more Scots than died in care homes.
