5 people tested positive in Scot in 24 hrs, 1,118 in England same day ..

[MumofHunter]

Anyone else scared that after doing so well as a country, we'll see an increase of cases in the next few weeks due to being un-able to control the border?

Not worried at all, and also think closing the border would be madness.

We can't close the border anyway, we don't have that power.
No I'm not massively worried. We've done a good job of controlling this but we need to get back to some kind of normal for the sake of people's jobs, education and sanity.

I'm hoping to go to Portugal early July @nextslideplease, awaiting air bridge announcements with bated breath! Flight looks like it's still going.

Where in the Highlands do you envisage so many people turning up that social distance outdoors becomes impossible?

Callisto1 Your post piqued my interest in what industries made up our economy. I think it’s confusing that government bodies say that tourism only accounts for 5% (I thought this was very low considering the amount of time devoted to this sector) of Scotland’s GDP though. It’s misleading of them.

The Services sector which accounts for 75% of Scotland’s GDP and is the biggest sector includes hotels and restaurants. I assumed hotels and restaurants would have been in the tourism sector. I’m not sure if they are represented twice or whatever(?)

I’ve found with a lot of number crunching, economics and statistics the devil is in the detail, definitions and what question is being asked.

Yes Scottish unemployment already highest in UK and that has been directly attributed to tourism - so it can clearly not be a ‘trivial’ 5 percent. Control of borders and sole responsibility of all the debt amassed so far due to coronavirus? No thanks.

How many tests carried out in England compared to Scotalnd and what are those figures as a %.

@Jodrie it's not my economy it's what the Scottish government website states and they know more about it than me!
www.gov.scot/publications/tourism-scotland-economic-contribution-sector/pages/2/
From the looks of it tourism employs quite a lot of people (8%) and they are mostly low skilled so probably hard to employ elsewhere. The value generated by finance & business, engineering, energy, construction is much higher; digital and creative industries generate similar amounts of value (that bit is from some other business website). And there's loads of smaller stuff as well.

I'm in no way disputing that tourism is important to the economy, just not sure that opening things up in July makes sense with the levels of Covid19 circulating in England. If we get a second peak or local outbreaks because of it we might have to lock down again. I think no one wants that!!

The other thing about tourism is that you probably won't get many people coming anyway, given that holidays in Spain, France etc will be possible and overseas travellers will keep away. All the festivals are cancelled too. So I guess it'll be golfers and people who enjoy wandering the outdoors (and midges ). Guess we're safe!

And yes hotels and restaurants are in the 5% number.

@MorrisZapp They'll be in shops, hotels etc from mid July, no?

I live in Edinburgh. State of the Meadows and Porty beach over the last couple of good weather days leads me to conclude that it's not the English we should be worrying about.

Shops and hotels will be operating hygiene measures and social distancing. Supermarkets have been open throughout lockdown. I support reopening businesses that support leisure spending, and I'm in Edinburgh. We can't go on like this.

*If we get air bridges, will people go abroad?

I really want a holiday but I'm also scared to go on one, so not sure yet what I will do.*

We are meant to be going to the Netherlands at the end of September. Not sure what we're going to do. Dh wants to go regardless but we have two young kids. We (and dr sil) are fairly convinced I had it in March. Horrendous cough, breathing issues, sore throat, out of breath going upstairs when normally I can sprint up them. Took me about six weeks to get over it. Plus one of dh's colleagues tested positive so it's entirely plausible.

I know it’s not your numbers and I certainly wasn’t having a go at you. Thank you for the link. I just found what makes up our economy interesting to know and was perplexed that they have tourism at only 5%.

I am surprised that hotels, restaurants and transport were put in the service sector of GDP according to ONS definition. I perhaps wrongly assumed the Scottish government would follow these same definitions (head of ONS is statistician and previous principal of Aberdeen university Sir Ian Diamond, who I have a lot of time for).

Yes, they do mention hotels and transport in the link you posted but I’ll need time to wade through it’s findings as it’s concerned with trends and data across Scotland and at first look it is very wordy. Is the document perhaps more of a projection of how tourism can be expanded in Scotland? I must admit I was merely looking at GDP and the sectors making that up. I’m not interested in trends and sustainability and how we can exploit our land and heritage to visitors and day trippers. (I know my views on holidays are unpopular in that I’d rather we spent time and energies making everyone’s life in Scotland better day to day so that they don’t need a holiday or to be a tourist, it’s just another superficial commodity to sell to us).

I wish we could shut the border till England gets the numbers down

There are many of us living in England who have relatives in Scotland whom we are desperate to see.

To be honest, we plan to go next week if the weather forecast is decent and we can socially distance outside.

Not everyone wanting to travel north is a tourist.

Does that go both ways? Can England shut us out when they don't like what some of our fellow country people are doing?

Can East Lothian insist nobody from Glasgow comes to their beaches?

How far do we cut the regionalism?

I don't see why it morris. If places need to be quarantined if numbers go up so be it. Or if countries need to stop travel for a bit so be it.

Sorry I meant why not

I think in practice, local lockdowns would be bearable only in emergency situations ie a large outbreak in a specific place. Shutting people out because their region is lagging ours slightly is not economically or socially tenable.

I certainly do not want any border between England/Scotland nor county borders closed. I would like to visit my in laws as soon as it’s safe to do so. For goodness sake we don’t live in a communist state!

Closing borders, where do you stop? Towns? Streets?... How will that play out with logistics of supplies of food, blood, medicines, essential services. Sorry Mrs you need vital medicine? we are waiting as it’s held up at the border....
Come on, that’s a bit tribalistic and ‘Local shops for local people’ like.

Please stop using any excuse push the independence agenda. Using COVID-19 is a bit distasteful.

Jodri 100%.

When Ikea opened their first Scottish store, it was here in Edinburgh. Plenty of joking and not so joking comments were made about the volumes of Glaswegians streaming over the M8 to load up on wavy mirrors and hot dogs. There was a sigh of relief when Braehead opened and they stopped coming.

See also Ayrshire beaches in summer.

If we close areas to residents of other areas, we open a huge and potentially very ugly can of worms. I personally believe in free movement for all UK citizens but I wouldn't be surprised if many residents would happily shut roads if they thought it was a socially acceptable thing to say out loud.

Let's not make it socially acceptable. All Scots are equal and so are all UK citizens.

I was referring to holidaymakers not people visiting family - I completely understand the need to see family.

Also can anyone tell me if any of the phases refer to being allowed to stay over with family? I can't see it anywhere...