Airbridges - will Scotland have separate rules?

[rookiemere]

If air bridges are agreed with some countries, does anyone know if that's for whole of UK or would Scotland be able to do something different regarding quarantine?
I get confused as to what Scotland has control over versus what's centrally decided.

Self catering open next week. I've been looking but most places fully booked.

Interesting discussion on GMB this morning- public health officer appeared to suggest Scotland could have air bridges with countries with similarly low Covid cases like NZ and England would be with countries with high / raising cases like Italy and Spain.

Also.. planes are still only cleaned once every 24 hours, the same as before the pandemic. 🤮

Mumofhunter I do sometimes wonder if these experts live in the real world, although as you say, interesting theoretical discussion.

They do realise that England and Scotland don't have border control- currently? Also demand for trips to NZ - wonderful country as it is - is not likely to be high due to the cost and time to get there.

It's a bit like Boris when he went off to agree trade conditions with NZ post Brexit. Lovely country, but a little small and far away to be of any real benefit.

Yes I'm not really sure what her point was. I thought rules would have to be the same for all UK countries regardless of the huge differences of Covid levels in England and the others.
Ah yes, Boris' Tam biscuits - sure that 's what everyone's worried about! On par with his press ups interview after overseeing 40k plus needless deaths. The mind boggles.

No deaths for 4 days in a row.

Border control ridiculous and impractical, but a SNP wet dream, keep those nasty English people out of precious, safe Scotland.

They need to can Nicola's daily "briefing" now as she's not briefing anything and it's turning into a 30 minute party political broadcast every day.

Sockyarn never mind that those nasty, diseased English people bring some much needed spending money with them.

We were told that lockdown was to flatten the curve, now it seems that even eradication of the disease doesn't give us our freedom back, which I thought was what track and trace was all about.

SockYarn border checks were done to contain the spread of foot and mouth. It's sensible and normal. I'd expect any country to do the same of needed.

I would of course rather we didn't need any checks and England were able to see the reduction in Covid as we have here.

Exactly. It's not personal, or anti English, just a natural concern that a country, very close to us, with a much higher level of infections, might negatively impact on our smaller numbers. Everything isn't political. It's not remotely practical to close the border to England, but understandable that it's something on folk's minds.

A country with the highest death rate in the world yet still easing lockdown. 😪

That's not right @MumofHunter.

Mumofhunter when you say highest death rate in the world do you mean in total or per million population? If I check this site which I don't think has any particular bias www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ the UK isn't the highest in any of the categories.

It's amongst the highest and I totally get that's not something to be proud of nor a fact to be shyed away from, but I don't think we are the highest.

I think people discount San Marino and Andorra as tiny. Belgium reports numbers differently so suspected cases too so higher than normal. I sort of feel like the fairest comparison would be excess deaths over 5 years average internationally. Not sure whether the ons equalent is available everywhere though?

It was on Sky News this afternoon. Obviously it's per capita not total.

Rookie that's UK stats not England.

Also all the countries count the numbers differently so those stats are pretty meaningless.

Anyway, I really hope things improve.

Nicola is just pissed off because Portugal wasn't mentioned - so no popping of to the house there.

Bbc news also reported UK worst for G7 countries, excess deaths per 100k population.

Figures can be presented in many ways, but regardless of whether they show the UK or England as 1st, 2nd or 3rd it is a position they should never have been in.

I'm thinking of driving to France. I've had enough of misery and icy driving rain.

What nonsense, now the Scottish transport secretary complains that
he had been given 30 minutes to look at a list of countries under consideration for "air bridges" before being asked to make a decision on Wednesday night.
The BBC is reporting.
Has he been out of the country or something? The air bridges thing has been going on for ages with neverending delays. And even now hasn't been announced. Talking about being petulant...

Totally agree @Arkadia. This has been all the press for around a month. Why is it a surprise to the SG? They are behaving like toddlers. I suspect they will have to follow England but will delay and stir up grievances for as long as possible while putting further jobs at risk.

Of course they will. Nicola won't agree with the uk government on anything.

Am i missing something here ? Wont scotlands numbers be lower due to a much smaller population ?
Does anyone have figures for working out comparison of different populations
I mean where i am in england a lot lower than london as expected due to size ans population density etc

Bbc now reporting that the list of countries exempt from quarantine on return is England only. Is this right? If so I'll change my return to Edinburgh to an English airport.