WHY we still need to be cautious in the Covid-era, the plight of care for the elderly and the future for culture were the coronavirus topics debated by columnists in the newspapers.

The Independent

Alexis Paton said two thirds of the country has, at best, a third of the required vaccine protection needed to see a safe return to normality, given the Indian variant effectiveness of the vaccines.

Not great odds, she said, proved as a country, and in particular globally, we are far from our destination of a Covid-free society.

“Yet these poor odds are just what the government is betting on,” she said. “In fact, it is staking everything its got and gone all in on a strategy to re-open the country that gambles with the nation’s loose grasp on controlling the virus.”

She said that given some areas of the UK are discouraged from meeting indoors due to a rise in the Indian strain ‘we must take pause at this important moment in time’,

“By waiting briefly on the road to recovery now, as a nation, it may be possible to avoid the devastating consequences of local lockdowns on those communities worst affected by the new variants.”

The Daily Express

Ann Widdecombe said the single most thing she was grateful for during Covid was not having an elderly parent in a care home.

“I have watched with horror while care home owners have turned into jailers, while old folk have died without seeing their nearest and dearest, while dementia patients cannot understand why nobody visits them any more and while one elderly lady knelt on the pavement to peer at her husband through railings,” she said. “Whatever else, this must never happen again and indeed should never have been allowed to continue so long.

“The law should now specify that care homes must keep a supply of PPE sufficient to enable one visitor twice a week per resident. Families who can should be allowed to remove residents into their own care.”

The Scotsman

Brian Ferguson said that during the closure of arts venues in Edinburgh during the pandemic there were increased calls for festivals to be decentralised and dispersed around the city.

He said, however, calls to see Fringe events rebranded as “commercial” “private”, “exclusive” or “hospitality” events were, however, ‘ridiculous and deeply misleading.’

“Nearly 75 years after the Edinburgh festivals were instigated in the aftermath of the Second World War to help bring nations across Europe together, it seems bizarre that the very notion of a cultural event for public enjoyment in the city should be up for debate,” he said. “It also suggests that a bit more reflection is needed by heritage enthusiasts on the cultural heritage of the city as it enters a crucial stage in its recovery.”