Readers' Letters: Scotland can take a lead globally in pandemic preparedness

A newly report published yesterday – Pandemic Ready: Safeguarding Our Future Through Preparedness – underscores Scotland’s potential to lead globally in pandemic preparedness.

I chaired an independent committee that was asked by the Scottish Government to look at what we could learn for future pandemics. We make five recommendations, including the establishment of a Scottish Pandemic Sciences Partnership to act as a nerve centre for assessing risks from emerging infectious diseases and drive innovation in pandemic management.

A transformation in how health data is used is needed. The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted significant delays, fragmentation and barriers to data sharing, This hampered rapid responses and informed decision-making.

Addressing social inequalities that were starkly evident during the pandemic is vital. Our approach must be inclusive, engaging directly with communities, especially those who are most vulnerable, to mitigate the heightened risks they face during health crises.

Scotland was pioneering during Covid-19. We were the first to demonstrate the efficacy of a single vaccine dose, which allowed the UK’s vaccination strategy to maximise coverage. Scotland excelled in genomic sequencing of the virus and contributed significantly to the RECOVERY trial at Oxford University, which identified effective treatments for severe Covid-19 and saved countless lives.

As Scots, we have a historical legacy of resilience and innovation. By adopting the committee’s recommendations, Scotland can craft a blueprint for pandemic preparedness that not only safeguards its own citizens but also serves as a model for global health security.

Professor Andrew Morris, Director of Health Data Research UK and Vice Principal, University of Edinburgh

Wishful thinking

Apparently, more than 200,000 people have signed a petition calling for an general election, less than five months after the last one. These people have very short memories about the mess that faced Keir Starmer and his government, left by the previous government. Do we really want to take the risk of reelecting them?

I think that the present government should be given time to prove themselves fit to govern in the long term. The two main controversial issues have been the recent Budget, which Rachel Reeves herself has admitted is not one she would have wanted to make, and the controversial inheritance tax increase. While I confess not to understand fully its implications, I accept that a loophole is being closed here and farmers are being helped in other ways.

On the subject of re-elections, I wish we could have a rerun of the EU referendum. Brexit has had more than eight years to prove itself and has turned out to be an abject failure. Some credit must surely be accorded to Keith Starmer and his fledgling government for attempting, at least, to repair our relationship with Europe.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

Think of the posties

As someone who joined the team at Mastrick Delivery Office in Aberdeen as an agency driver during the general election it should not surprise anyone that I am not amongst those wanting another general election.

It is time that the Better Together campaign delivered on the promises of change made in the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 and putting out more ‘election communications’ changes nothing.

While my eldest daughter, who was 17 years old in July, will now get to vote, it changes nothing due to the failures of the first-past-the-post electoral system. The governing party is irrelevant in Peterhead and stood no candidates at three recent Aberdeenshire Council by elections.

I not sure when, or indeed if, Labour will stop the appointment of millionaires as leaders of a party that is supposed to represent the working class and yet can’t find it within themselves to tax fellow millionaires properly. I am beyond actually caring any more.

I just wish the general public would see it is not a general election we need but radical lasting reform of a Westminster system that is about as useful as the letterboxes from Queen Victoria’s time in some of the streets in Stephen Flynn MP’s Aberdeen South constituency.

Will things change? No, so why waste time and money and plenty of trees on having another general election that most posties could do without?

Peter Ovenstone, Peterhead, Aberdeenshire

Iceberg ahead

Christmas has come early. Strike up the band. Wonders never cease. After three years and miles of newsprint I am in complete and total agreement with Gerald Edwards!

He writes that Sir Keir Starmer is like the captain of the Titanic powering ahead without appearing to acknowledge the public’s disappointment in the first five months of the Westminster Labour government (Letters, 26 November). I can’t wait for the iceberg.

Marjorie Ellis Thompson, Edinburgh

Balancing books

With the Scottish Budget only a matter of days away, what are the cries and demands of Scotland’s opposition party leaders?

Anas Sarwar and Scottish Labour are calling for the winter fuel payment to be reinstated in Scotland by bringing forth amendments to the Social Security (Amendment) Bill at Holyrood (Scotsman, 26 November). Conservative leader Russell Findlay is calling for 100 per cent rates relief for the hospitality sector (Scotsman, 26 November).

Both very credible demands. However, where is the money to meet those demands coming from? Scotland has no borrowing powers, Scotland needs to balance the books, Scotland’s budget settlement has been reduced in real terms by 1.2 per cent since 2022-23 and the impact on Scotland’s finances by just one manifesto broken promise by the UK‘s Labour Government – the increase to employers’ national insurance contributions – has seen in excess of £500m being added to our public service expenditure. Scotland’s largest public sector employer is our NHS and the impact of those increases will be felt far and wide.

For opposition leaders in Scotland, their real demand should be to their party leaders in Westminster who are making decisions impacting detrimentally on Scotland’s finances.

Catriona C Clark, Falkirk

Urgent need

Calls to extend the winter fuel payment to persons eligible to claim the state pension supplement who fail to do so are understandable. However, identifying all such persons and assisting them to make claims if necessary is going to take time, and the need is now.

It also seems unfair that those who have had the foresight and made the sacrifice to build up a pension fund should be denied the payment.

To meet the immediate need I would suggest the universal payment be continued for this winter and made taxable, as the state retirement pension currently is.

S Beck, Edinburgh

Throwaway society

The BBC ran a news item recently about a Mr Carter, in Comrie, Perthshire who was trying to send unwanted bicycles to Africa. During a recent visit to Comrie, I visited the ex-prisoner of war camp at Cultybraggan where I bumped into Mr Carter, who is responsible for what I thought was a noble cause.

Sadly, when the shipping container, full of bikes, reached the Scottish port for onward sailing to Africa, “jobsworths" deemed the bikes to be “unfit for purpose” and returned them to Comrie.

It does seem to me that the children of Africa would be able to find a way to repair a broken brake cable or oil a rusty chain. Who knows, they might even have gone on to set up a repair business.

We used to have an expression “necessity is the mother of invention”. I can believe it still happens in Africa but here in Scotland we have moved become a throwaway society.

Bruce Proctor, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire

Slippery slope?

Many are worried about the assisted dying Bill in England. Why? Because people, acting in good faith, believe they are “doing good”, and are acting in a humane way. Logic, therefore, says that the more we expand the rules, the more “good” will be done. Slippery slope, probably.

William Ballantine, Bo’ness, West Lothian

E-scooter menace

The Scottish Government has confirmed that e-scooter trials using hired e-scooters could start within a year. Midlothian and Glasgow City councils are said to be keen to participate.

There are 22 trials going on in England with hired e-scooters, resulting in far too many injuries to pedestrians and e-scooter riders and even deaths. Hired e-scooters have been abandoned on pavements causing injuries.

Private e-scooters, which are illegal on UK roads, have added to the problem. There is already enough chaos with bikes, e-bikes and fast food delivery couriers with no identification or insurance without allowing these trials.

Those MSPs and Scottish councillors in favour of the idea should be forced to take part in the trial and have no access to any other form of transport. That would show them the stupidity of this dangerous idea.

Clark Cross, Linlithgow, West Lothian

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