It is trying when mathematicians declare condescendingly that there is no point doing things because their models tell them so. Well maybe some of the assumptions don't hold up. How did that work out for the no additional risk from large events and no point in border controls...

During wave 1 cases fell very fast, faster than I think most people were expecting. Particularly in Scotland. Rt was probably ~0.5 until we started easing off.

This was despite a constant leak of cases coming out of hospitals and LTC facilities as we were rationing PPE and are policies were nowhere near ideal. There was insistence from infection control that droplet protections were sufficient. We have all learned a lot since then.

Not to mention we have learned to avoid the shit show of actively importing cases into care homes. We've learned not to repeat that. Other sectors have learned too.

We've learned a lot and there's no reason we can't control this new variant. But we will not manage if we don't try and act with clarity of purpose.