A LOT has happened in the past month with the pandemic – some good and some bad.

On the bad side, and after me spouting on in my last column how well we were doing in suppressing the Covid-19 virus, down then to 20 new infection cases a day, that has increased to nearer 250 a day, so throughout the Greater Glasgow area restrictions have had to be reintroduced.

The recent easing of restrictions around house parties seems to have been the problem, where social distancing was not observed and permitted numbers attending to have exceeded. This has seen meeting other households indoors suspended and outdoor gatherings restricted to six members from no more than two families with social distancing observed.

The other reintroduced restriction is in relation to care home visits. Disappointing but necessary if we are to prevent the disease returning to care and nursing homes. We just cannot afford to repeat the crisis that occurred in the spring when many vulnerable residents of care homes caught the disease and sadly passed away.

NHS Scotland have introduced a new contact tracing app designed in an anonymised way to help suppress the coronavirus spread for use on your smartphone. Essentially it will tell you if you have been in the company of someone who has tested positive so you can take action to get tested.

The app is called Protect Scotland app is available to download for free from Apple and Google stores and I urge as many people as possible to download it.

On the good side our children are back to school full time, and those pupils who had their exam results marked down by an algorithm which appeared to target children from schools in poorer communities had their results reassessed on the basis of teacher evaluation. This resulted in the algorithm being overturned and at the same time discredited for flying in the face of basic equality – a core policy of the Scottish Parliament.

This sensible outcome resulted in much relief of those hoping to go on to further education and their families. Let’s hope this experience teaches exam authorities to trust common sense and trust teachers, and not be seduced by fancy technology which didn’t work.

Looking forward to the next few months we have to hope that this current spike in the covid-19 infection rates is a blip and we can contain the disease again before winter sets in. So I urge everybody to stick by the basic guidelines of FACTS: Face coverings in enclosed spaces; Avoid crowded places; Clean hands and surfaces regularly; Two metre distancing; and Self-isolate and book a test if you have symptoms.

Stay safe.