Rangers fans are many things, but apparently, in a surprising twist, they are now breaking the boundaries of science and accelerating the process by which Covid-19 trends can be reported.
For the last year we have been told that any measures taken by the respective governments and health services will only be able to be assessed after three weeks to ascertain their success, it now appears that this has shortened to one week after Scottish media reported that there has been an increase in cases due to the celebrations that followed Rangers title celebrations a little over a week ago.
Dr Gregor Smith, the Chief Medical Officer, was contradictory in the daily briefing when he revealed that there has been an “increase in cases”, as reported by The Daily Record:
“How closely we can associate that with the events of last weekend is at this stage difficult, but during the interviews the contact tracing teams are having with people who have tested positive, there are a small number who are revealing that they either took part in those celebrations or are involved in house parties that arose from those as well.
“What we are saying over the last few days is an increase in the number of cases that we’re associating with many of those areas, particularly with upticks across Lanarkshire, Glasgow city in particular, and parts of Ayrshire and Arran as well.”
The desperation to link Rangers fans with an increase in cases is as pathetic as it is misleading, there was no such reporting when Celtic broke guidelines on an almost weekly basis, or during the summer when BLM protests were occurring.
What is a “small number”, one? Two? A hundred? We are told on a daily basis exactly how many cases there are in the country and Dr Smith would have known exactly how many people who he claims were “part of those celebrations” that had recently tested positive – so why not reveal this figure?
The sooner politics has nothing to do with football the better, using the national sport as a diversion from mores serious issues, failures of government and scandals in Holyrood is becoming more than a tad tiresome.