Coronavirus - Scotland 6 months on

"The number of patients did make it feel like you were in a natural disaster."

The words of Bob Docking, who's an intensive care consultant in Glasgow.

1st September marks six months since the first positive test for coronavirus was confirmed in Scotland and MFR is reflecting on how the pandemic has evolved, and how it's affected us.

That case was found in Tayside on the first of March after a man had travelled back from Northern Italy.

We've now seen over twenty thousand cases across Scotland since then and just under two and a half thousand people have sadly died after testing positive for the virus.

Bob Docking is an ICU consultant at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and spoke to us surrounded by empty intensive care beds - a stark contrast to the conditions at the height of the crisis in April and May.

"I was on the first night we had our first Covid patient here and it was that dawning reality this was a very tangible thing that was going to start to occur, and then it just began to snowball.

"It did feel like being on a war footing. We were very busy, everybody was dressed in a relatively new uniform with the full PPE - masks, face shields.

"The number of patients did make it feel like you were in a natural disaster. Everything changed outside. It felt like you were locked away in your own community of a hospital.

"It has affected us all. The fact you weren't able to escape it. You were working a full shift dealing with coronavirus then going home to news reports, press briefings and social media. It was very hard to get time off."

On 23rd March the UK was put into lockdown with businesses and schools forced to close.

Some of those are only now being allowed to open back up this week, such as gyms and swimming pools, and many others including theatres, nightclubs and softplay centres remain shut.

Professor Linda Bauld is an expert in public health at the University of Edinburgh.

She says even although the country's handled it well, it was underprepared for what was to come:

"The key things Scotland could have done better were first of all to increase our testing capacity much quicker than we did - that was an issue for all of the UK - and secondly recognise the risks were huge for our elderly population and we should have done much more to protect care homes.

"We can't stay locked up forever so we have to find a balance. We have to live with this virus and open up the economy cautiously, monitor what's going on and protect the vulnerable while we wait for better treatments, and hopefully, a vaccine.

"The frustratation we feel to get back to normal is understandable but I feel most people recognise that the way we're going to have to live for the next few months is going to be maintaining physical distancing and wearing face coverings.

"I am optimistic we'll get through this period and in a year or two we will have learned to live with Covid."

In recent weeks Scotland has seen cases increase again, with 160 reported on 31st August being the highest since the middle of May.

New clusters are cropping up across Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lanarkshire, Forth Valley and Ayrshire and Arran while Test and Protect teams appear to have controlled major outbreaks in Aberdeen - which had its hospitality sector put back into a three week lockdown - and hundreds of cases linked to a chicken processing plant in Couper Angus.

Dr Chris Hand is a lecturer in Psychology at Glasgow Caledonian University.

He says rediscovering some freedoms has led to some people letting off too much steam, while others feel there are a different person coming out of lockdown.

"It will take time for people to adapt to new ways of working. We've seen a lot of examples of people getting carried away and forgetting that we are still supposed to be trying to maintain physical distancing.

"It's quite challenging that different places have different set ups. Not every cafe or shop works in the same way and it's very mentally draining for people to have to learn the rules."

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