COVID-19 SUPPORT
A TIME OF RESILIENCE, A TIME OF RESOLVE On the following pages, we look back at how communities and businesses from across the Highlands and Islands have responded to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s safe to say that 2020 has been a year like no other. The year of COVID-19. A year that has introduced us all to face masks, hand sanitiser and social distancing. A year when we’ve had to become familiar with an ‘unprecedented’ new vocabulary: lockdown, quarantine, furlough, clusters, R numbers and, of course, last but not least, the new normal. It has been a year that has challenged us and changed us – not just here in the Highlands and Islands, but across Scotland and around the world. But against this difficult backdrop, in the most worrying of times, there have also been stories that revealed the best of us. Stories of spirited communities and resilient businesses. Stories that illustrate the strength of our shared resolve. Stories that point the way forward as we try to map out a new future, new ways of working, and new ways of ensuring that our communities and businesses bounce back in 2021. Here we look at just some of these stories from the Highlands and Islands. On pages 8-9, we look back at how rural communities came together to help protect the most vulnerable during lockdown.
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On pages 10-14, we look at how businesses from across the Highlands and Islands adapted in the short term, both pulling together to support the NHS and other essential services, but also changing their business models in response to the new reality they now face in the long term. Of course, it’s impossible to capture the full impact of the past nine months in a few pages, or indeed to convey the breadth and depth of the region’s response. But we do hope to illustrate some of the positive building blocks that reassure us the people of the Highlands and Islands will rise to the challenges of the future.
