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Jason Leitch

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10 Jan, 2022

Leitch doubts effectiveness of Sturgeon lockdown

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Leitch confirms that Sturgeon’s stringent lockdown measures, which have financially affected Scottish football clubs and nightclubs, have made no difference to the spread of Covid. Scottish football is losing £2 million per week in lost revenue whilst Scotland maintains a similar level of infection to England.

If you want to do the comparison, Northern Ireland’s number is much higher than ours. Wales is higher. England and Scotland is very similar. We were lower than them, now they’re catching up a little bit.

Despite this, he maintains it is correct to continue in a similar manner on the basis that the weekly figures are just a snapshot and that in the longer term, Scotland will begin to see the benefits.

Should we still be protecting the public from these case rates if they are just going to go anyway? I think ‘yes’ is the answer to that. I think the protections reduce the size of the wave and potentially also elongate the wave to allow more people to get vaccinated and spread the hospitalisations and intensive care cases out over a longer period.