The Sunday Post View: Terrible tragedy in Scotland’s care homes merits far more than spin and shrugs

Two hands clap and there is a sound. What is the sound of one hand clapping?

– Hakuin Ekaku

It is a question that has bent the mind of students of Zen for centuries.

The age-old Buddhist head-scratcher might finally have been answered on Wednesday when Public Health Scotland released its report into the discharge of Covid-positive patients into care homes.

The sound of one hand clapping? That would be Scotland’s response before the stunned silence was broken in disbelief and, for those who lost loved ones in our care homes, anger and dismay.

The report itself was simple confirmation of our report revealing dozens of patients were sent to homes after positive tests by health boards ordered to clear hospital beds as the first wave of Covid broke.

At least 2,000 residents – although most likely many more – died directly or indirectly because of Covid in Scotland’s homes. And who can doubt that sending positive patients into homes, unprepared and ill-equipped, played a part? Who, that is, apart from the Scottish Government?

From Nicola Sturgeon down, ministers insisted the big takeaway from the report was that large homes were more likely to have suffered outbreaks than small ones. No kidding? Sending positive patients into care homes? Neither here nor there. The added risk? Statistically insignificant.

In fact, it was such a non-issue the government’s press release responding to a report, commissioned by ministers into positive patients sent into care homes, did not mention positive patients sent into care homes. Not a word. Nothing.

Some might say that was almost Trumpian in its brass-necked chutzpah, Alternatively, it might be thought grotesque, a brazen attempt at deflection inflicting needless injury to public trust at a time when protecting that trust could not be more critical.

We hear so much about transparency. It is a tenet of Ms Sturgeon’s daily briefings. We are grown-ups, we are told, and should be treated as such. Well, on Wednesday, Scots were not treated like grown-ups but like dummies, incapable of seeing beyond a crafted soundbite and a sincere expression.

In the face of a great deal of competition, the tragedy that unfolded in Scotland’s care homes is the gravest tragedy of the last six months. The families of those who died deserve more than to be told they might discover why after a public inquiry, which, in this country, even in the best of times, might take another decade.

The rest of us deserve to know ministers have done more than cross their fingers while crafting a glib, specious response to deflect from their policy decisions.

Today, we report how charities want a short, sharp, investigation, lasting weeks not months and tailored to help stop more tragedy in another crashing wave of Covid.

That, not spin and shrugs, would be a fitting and specific response to this specific but bewildering tragedy.