THE grim legacy from lockdown has upended society and Scotland will be grappling with the impact of the Covid crisis for decades, it has been warned.
The health service, economy, education and business were rocked when people were told to “stay at home, protect the NHS, and save lives”.
Scotland will be grappling with the impact of the Covid crisis for decades[/caption]
And today the Scottish Sun On Sunday shines a light on the lasting effects – exactly five years since the first lockdown on March 23, 2020.
Public services were plunged into crisis – with the NHS and spiralling waiting lists the biggest focus of national debate in the years since.
Schools have been badly affected by falling attainment and issues like soaring absences, while the economy has struggled to recover and been battered by global headwinds.
Writing in today’s Scottish Sun On Sunday, Edinburgh University public policy expert Professor James Mitchell said Covid’s legacy “will continue to affect future generations”, adding: “We still don’t know the full extent of its impact but the picture we have is grim.”
HEALTH
On the health service, doctors leaders’ said Covid “brutally exposed” long-term issues with Scotland’s NHS.
Since 2020, the hospital waiting list in Scotland has swollen from 449,021 to a record 875,878 last June – and 855,267 in the latest count.
Cancer targets are still being missed and A&E waits have hit record levels, with medics warning this is costing hundreds of lives a year.
BMA Scotland chair Dr Iain Kennedy said SNP ministers’ NHS Recovery Plan of August 2021 stated aims of increasing NHS capacity, reforming the delivery of care, and getting everyone the treatment they need as quickly as possible.
But he said: “None of these have been delivered.”
Dr Kennedy says the NHS was in “no fit state” to deal with a pandemic[/caption]
Covid ‘brutally exposed’ the long-term issues with Scotland’s NHS[/caption]
Dr Kennedy added: “The NHS was in no fit state to deal with a pandemic when it hit in 2020, with services experiencing chronic under-investment, a lack of workforce planning, acute staffing shortages, reduced bed stock, unsafe bed occupancy levels, year-round capacity issues, growing waiting lists, neglected infrastructure and deteriorating equipment.
“The Covid pandemic brutally exposed these fault lines. Five years on, the NHS is understaffed, under-resourced and still struggling to cope with demand, with consistent pressures being felt all-year round.
“This was foreseeable pre-pandemic and indeed the BMA and many other voices have been warning of this hugely concerning direction of travel for years.”
The outset of the pandemic saw the NHS and government braced for wards being flooded with Covid patients across the country amid doom-laden projections of hospitals becoming overwhelmed.
While high numbers were admitted, a £70million field hospital built at Glasgow’s SEC was never used to treat virus victims.
But the controversial decision to suspend other NHS services including cancer screening led to a spike in deaths from other diseases – and has left a massive backlog, fuelling the bumper waiting list.
Amid the crisis, more and more Scots are resorting to private healthcare, with latest dats showing that in the third quarter of 2024, 11,880 reported private in-patient/day-care admissions in Scotland, compared to around 9,000 in each quarter of 2019.
Latest data from the Private Healthcare Information Network shows that in the third quarter of 2024, 11,880 reported private in-patient/day-care admissions in Scotland, compared to around 9,000 in each quarter of 2019. People paying for their appointments themselves – rather than by insurance – doubled between 2019 and 2024.
Dr Kennedy said: “Evidence suggests increasing numbers of people turning to private healthcare after finding the NHS is not able to provide the care they need, when they need.”
There has been a major push by hospitals and GP surgeries to move more appointments to phone and video calls.
But Dr Kennedy said: “Video triaging in secondary care can be very complex – it could potentially result in multiple appointments for individual patients and creating extra work unnecessarily is a real risk.”
EDUCATION
On education, pupils were locked out of classes for months in 2020 and early 2021 – and the upended school system now faces multiple crises as a result.
Lasting effects of the huge disruption are being felt in everything from attainment to attendance, and a spike in bad behaviour.
The lasting effects of huge disruption around Covid is still being felt in the classrooms[/caption]
Data shows Scotland’s performance slumped between 2019 and 2022 in the Programme for International Student assessment. Exam results in 2024 showed Higher pass rates fell to the lowest since 2019.
Persistent absences have risen sharply, amid warnings that the lockdown closures have led pupils to think school is not that important.
In 2018/19, 30.6 per cent of secondary kids were missing at least ten per cent of the school year. That had risen to a staggering 41 percent in the past two years.
Edinburgh University education expert Professor Lindsay Paterson said: “The legacy of Covid for education is very serious. Although attainment in school exams by students from well-off families has recovered, the harm which poverty does to school attainment has worsened.
“The main reason is that, during the Covid school closures, children in families that couldn’t afford decent laptops or broadband lost out on large amounts of learning.”
He added: “School attendance since Covid has become much worse. Four out of ten secondary students miss a day a fortnight. Two out of ten miss a day a week. It’s impossible for anyone to do well if they skip school so often. Behaviour in schools is now, in many places, atrocious.”
ECONOMY
Meanwhile, the economy went off a cliff in 2020 as lockdown hit – and we are still reeling from the biggest GDP fall in 300 years.
Scotland was hit by an even bigger slump than the UK fall in gross domestic product, shrinking by 12.0 per cent compared to the 10.3 per cent national fall.
A sharp recovery in 2021 saw Scotland keeping pace with the country as a whole.
But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a major curveball and disrupted the recovery.
Borrowing went through the roof, and Covid-19 measures have cost the UK £310billion to £410billion – a combination of support for business, such as furlough, and support for NHS.
And the UK then faced soaring inflation as energy prices rose, with rates rising to 11.1 per cent in October 2022. They fell back to 1.17per cent in September 2024, but 2025 has seen inflation start to rise again.
Scotland’s economy was hit by an even bigger slump than the UK fall in GDP[/caption]
Experts reckon the Scottish Government is “largely disengaged” on the subject of renewed growth and productivity[/caption]
John McLaren, an economist who has worked in the Treasury, the Scottish Office and for think-tanks, said both Scotland and the UK had suffered in terms of sluggish labour market recovery and low-to-no productivity growth.
He said some other countries had done a lot better – such as the USA, Denmark, and Australia – and some as bad or worse, such as Germany, France, Japan.
Mr McLaren said: “So, we’re not great but we’re not unique.
“The big questions that remain re Covid and the economy are: Has working from home (WFH) impacted negatively on productivity? Has Covid worsened health and so labour market participation? And if the answer to either or both is yes then what policies are needed to address these issues?”
He added: “How, when and why will this change? Unfortunately, no serious economist can give a definitive answer to any of these questions.
“Political claims of renewed growth are easy to make but difficult to deliver, as the UK Government is starting to find out. Meanwhile, the Scottish Government remains largely disengaged on the subject.”
TRANSPORT
TRAINS and buses have yet to recover to pre-pandemic passenger levels despite efforts to get people back on to public transport.
Operators kept services running for essential travel during lockdowns.
But figures from ScotRail and major providers show how passenger numbers fell off a cliff in 2020 due to the stay at home order.
And as many people switched to working from home for good, footfall has struggled to recover to pre-pandemic levels on any of the main modes of transport.
From October 2023, ScotRail ran a taxpayer-funded pilot scheme where peak fares were scrapped, But this was axed in 2024 with ministers saying it didn’t increase uptake enough.
Scott Prentice, ScotRail’s strategy and planning director, said: “The way people travel has changed significantly over the past five years, and while it’s encouraging to see passenger numbers recovering we know there is still work to do to encourage more people to travel by train instead of the car.
“Despite the temporary timetable impacting journeys in 2024, passenger numbers continue to move in the right direction, and we expect further growth by the end of this year.”
Trains and buses are yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels[/caption]
ScotRail passenger numbers were 96.4million in the year ending March 31 2020, and fell to 15.8million in 2020/21. They have risent each year since and should hit around 84million for the current year ending March 31 – still down on 2019/20.
There is a similar picture on the buses – though the drops were not as severe. This is thought to reflect high numbers of essential workers who use buses compared to those who use trains.
And the free bus travel for under 22s who apply for a pass kicked in from January 31, 2022, boosting passenger numbers as the industry recovered.
First Glasgow had 92.1million passenger trips in 2019, dropping to 45.7million. Totals were back to 81.6million last year.
Edinburgh’s Lothian Buses saw a similar pattern. Its numbers are not back to the 124.2million seen in 2019, but its 116million customer journeys in 2024 is a 94 per cent recovery, even though the new trams line to Newhaven opened in June 2023 and took with it many former bus passengers.
Lothian said a “buoyant visitor and leisure market have driven stronger recovery at weekends” and a spokesperson said: “While working patterns, travel habits and societal trends have altered in the years following the pandemic, we have consistently adapted and reviewed our services to ensure we continue to meet the evolving customer demand.”
HOSPITALITY
THE hospitality industry was battered by Covid restrictions for two years until 2022 – with business numbers now well down on pre-pandemic days.
Industry chiefs became frustrated over the chopping and changing of restrictions after the total shutdown in March 2020.
And there was anger over muddled responses from ministers about whether practices like “vertical drinking” – standing up with a drink – would be allowed.
They also complained of a lack of financial support.
Between March 2020 and the end of 2024, the number of licenced premises in Scotland fell by 1,258 or 11.9 per cent, from 10,541 to 9,283, according to trade body UKHospitality.
The Scottish Beer & Pub Association says Scotland is now 250 pubs down on its pre-pandemic level of 4,569 – and says the sector is still being squeezed by both the UK and Scottish governments.
Comparing 2019 with 2024, operating costs for a typical pub are now up 45 per cent – heaping huge pressures on the sector.
Paul Togneri of the Scottish Beer & Pub Association, said: “The pandemic had a devastating and long-lasting impact on the sector in Scotland and across the UK.
“Unfortunately, due to a range of factors including geopolitical changes, an unfair business rates system, additional regulations, and increases to taxes, including the planned NI rise coming into effect in April, the profitability of pubs continues to decline.
“The sector is vital to communities and local economies, supporting around 65,000 jobs. To protect these jobs and the fantastic community assets that pubs are, we need meaningful support from policymakers at all levels of government.”
The constant changing of restrictions caused frustration among industry leaders[/caption]
The Scottish Beer & Pub Association says Scotland is now 250 pubs down on its pre-pandemic level[/caption]
Kate Nicholls, Chief Executive of UKHospitality, said: “The pandemic was a once-in-a-generation event that completely devastated the hospitality sector, forcing businesses to shut or operate with heavy restrictions for the best part of two years and causing untold hardship for those business owners, employees and communities.
“Little did we know the pandemic would mark the start of five years of economic turmoil, swiftly followed by Covid debt, an energy crisis, record staffing shortages, sky-high inflation, a cost-of-living crisis and an ever-growing tax burden. Since 2019, more than 1,200 Scottish hospitality businesses have closed their doors for good.
“Hospitality businesses have, understandably, found recovery challenging but the sector has been resilient and continued to grow. Hospitality has adapted to changing working patterns and consumer behaviour to ensure it is delivering for the public, who still list eating and drinking out as one of their priorities.
“Despite the numerous challenges, hospitality’s resilience and potential to grow is clear. We need to see the Scottish Government recognise the importance of our sector economically, socially and culturally, as it did in the pandemic, and back our potential to grow and support our communities.”
HOUSE PRICES
THE “search for space” has fuelled a widening gap between house and flat prices in Scotland since the pandemic, experts say.
Lockdowns saw people stuck in their homes and desperate to spend time outdoors.
And life was particularly hard for people living in flats with little or no private open space,
While many moves had to be delayed in the first half of 2020, since the market sprang back to life, data suggests the hunt for homes with gardens has pushed house prices up more than for flats.
Registers of Scotland data in the UK House Price Index show an average detached house price in Scotland of £355,539 in latest figures, for December 2024.
This is 2.7 times higher than an average flat price of £132,826.
In December 2019, the average detached house price was £263,653 compared to £106,053 for flats – 2.5 times higher.
Over the five-year period, the average detached house price is up 34.9 per cent, while flats are up less, by 25.2 per cent.
A similar pattern is seen in property website Zoopla’s own house price index.
It suggests flats in Scotland had an average value of £104,300 in Scotland in January this year, and houses £212,000 – with house prices 1.9 times higher than flat prices.
With more time in their homes thanks to lockdown and WFH, there’s been a widening gap between house and flat prices[/caption]
Flat prices are up 18 per cent in five years, but houses are up 24 per cent, with that house to flat price ratio increasing by 1.8 to 1.9.
Richard Donnell, executive director at Zoopla, said: “The search for space over the pandemic boosted demand for houses more than flats, while concerns over running costs for flats – like service charges – as well as fire safety concerns for some newer flats, have impacted demand, acting as a drag on the price of flat prices.
“As a result, flats have become even cheaper compared to houses over the last five years.”
SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT RESPONSE
Health Secretary Neil Gray said: “The Scottish and UK Covid-19 Inquiries were established to learn lessons from the unprecedented events of the pandemic, which posed challenges to health systems across the world.
“We want patients to be treated as soon as possible. However, we know many are facing unacceptable waits and we are determined to do more. That is why we are targeting an additional £200 million to reduce waits and enhance capacity.
“We are also looking to optimise the full force of the £21.7 billion committed through the Scottish Budget to health and social care to improve performance.
“We are making progress with latest figures showing improvements in new outpatient, diagnostic and inpatient/day case waiting times performance.
“Diagnostic waits are at their lowest since October 2021. We have surpassed our pledge to carry out 64,000 procedures by end of March 2025 through £30 million of targeted funding, with Boards reporting delivery of 75,500 appointments and procedures.
“We know the challenges which lockdown restrictions had on young people, but the most recent ACEL (Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence) statistics showed the narrowest poverty-related attainment gap in literacy levels across primary since records began.
“Recent official figures showed some welcome, positive improvement in attendance and persistent absence levels.”
