A comment by a reader yesterday is worth reposting for maximum exposure:
By Alex Lee-MacDonald
It’s a very good point that often seems to be forgotten by both opponents and supporters of the Scottish Government – Scotland did not have any legal powers to lockdown until the (UK Parliament) Coronavirus Act 2020 was passed late on 25th March 2020 –
https://www.sacc.org.uk/coronavirus/2020/lockdown-law-scotland.
Prior to that, England and Wales had power to lockdown but Scotland did not –
The first few days of lockdown 1, which were actually only advisory in Scotland until after the Coronavirus Act 2020 passed, probably only worked in Scotland because the rest of the UK had locked down and there was consistent stay at home messages across the UK at that point.
This is a key point when discussing Scotland’s death rate in the pandemic compared to other countries because by late March 2020, when Scotland got the powers to lockdown (or 23 March 2020 when advisory lockdown became possible), the vast majority of the deaths/cases in the first wave were already baked in. Even though the lockdown got the reproduction number down across the UK, the very high baseline of cases at that point meant that no matter what policies the Scottish Government adopted, almost all the cases/deaths were already baked in by that point, probably until around start of June.
Talking-up Scotland 
Very good point, which bears repeating during the (supposed) questions that NS has to answer.
BTW, is it just me, are the sessions – and, indeed, the questions! – not only shorter, but less hostile when it’s *anybody* but NS doing the briefings?
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Simples just go look at Norway
Full powers and Independent with a careless hapless irresponsible Swedish neighbour
Result
Total Infections to date / million
Norway 14811
Scotland 38183
England 67297
And for Deaths
Norway 117
Scotland 1365
England 1992
But in last 7 days something very very interesting occurring in Norway
They now getting more new cases / day than Scotland
Reason The Kent (not British ) variant
Now loose and rampant proving extremely difficult to control and ICU and Hospital admissions climbing
This Kent variant not only is 80% more contagious it appears to be more dangerous and lethal
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It’s a valid point from a legislative perspective, but so too is the fact SAGE were in the “expert” driving seat, UK scientific knowledge was at the early stage of appreciating Covid differed to flu, and “herd immunity” was flavour of the month at #10.
That combination did indeed bake in most of the early deaths even if Ian Murray et al choose for political reasons not to acknowledge it.
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