But I cannot be the only observer who reckons this is bonkers of the first order and wonders how many pubs and other hostelries, as well as their staff, will have suffered still more financial hardship by having their lucrative Hogmanay and New Year’s Day business curtailed by her restrictions. 

And yet come Twelfth Night (January 5), she might well have decided to go along with the Prime Minister and more than a few senior medical and scientific advisers.

She did not come close to admitting she is in the wrong. After all, Scotland’s pre-eminent politician isn’t in the business of eating crow. Instead, she insisted that reducing the period of self isolation for those who have been exposed to the virus must be balanced against the risk of such action leading to the further spread of infections.

And as far as she is concerned, the best option is to keep the isolation period at 10 days… for now.

The opposition leaders – the Tories’ Douglas Ross and Labour’s Anas Sarwar – went through the motions of criticising her over the damage her policies are causing to Scotland’s economy. But there were no ringing denunciations. Indeed, the best that Mr Ross came up with was that Ms Sturgeon was guilty of “indecision”.  

When will the voters wake up?

It’s easy to bemoan their low-key attacks, but it’s almost certain that their number crunchers have warned them that Nicola Sturgeon’s actions throughout this pandemic have had the support of most voters. 

Even now, when they see their family and other social gatherings so circumscribed by her rules and regulations and their new year celebrations all but cancelled, a great many people are content to accept her judgment about how to survive the pandemic.

But when they’ve been treated to an almost daily diet of blood-curdling warnings about a “tsunami” of omicron coming to get them, is it any wonder that they accept some, if not all, of her restrictions and remedies?

Scotland’s business and commercial community, especially in the hospitality sector, has been cruelly treated by lockdowns and restrictions, and have enjoyed precious little support from politicians… of all parties.

But it’s a supine general population who’ve been most at blame in swallowing just about every syllable of Nicola Sturgeon’s strategy for defeating Covid whilst, at the same time, failing to defend their country’s economy properly.

And when the pandemic is over and they discover that Scotland’s economy has been wrecked, will they only then accept that they’ve been duped?