‘It is better to acknowledge mistakes were made than to cover them up’
as staff. That was essential. Mistakes were made, fatal mistakes in this instance.
“I think transparency is important, and accountability, to learn lessons. If we don’t acknowledge how things went wrong we can’t do better next time.”
She was speaking as, we can reveal, 15 leading charities and support organisations write to Lady Poole warning her inquiry risks failing some of the most vulnerable and marginalised Scots because, unlike the UK inquiry, the remit does not explicitly acknowledge they were disproportionately affected.
Sridhar said the inquiry must address all and any mistakes to prevent them being repeated in future public health emergencies. Her new book, Preventable, compares how countries around the world responded to Covid, and reveals how the willingness of South Korea, for example, to learn from its response to the Mers virus shaped their reponse in 2020. Approximately 20,000 people have died from Covid in South Korea, a 0.13% death rate and one of the world’s lowest.
She said: “That’s how they got it so right. They bungled Mers and they admitted they bungled Mers. They didn’t have testing in place. They didn’t share with the public what was happening. They corrected based on that and that’s why they’ve done really well.”
In the weeks before the first lockdown all four nations of the UK were in lockstep, according to Sridhar, and the virus was allowed to spread in the hope that herd immunity could be achieved. At the same time testing and contact tracing was abandoned, something Sridhar warned the UK Government against in an email sent to officials in March 2020. At the same time, she co-signed a letter to the Scottish Government expressing concern about the lack of containment measures as the virus raged.
Her influence on the Scottish Government has been questioned by critics of Holyrood’s response, however, particularly in its initial backing for so-called Zero Covid, a complete elimination of the virus that, they say, was unrealistic and led to excess caution and excessive restrictions.
The academic has also been accused of becoming too close to the Scottish Government after insisting Scotland’s response had been more effective than England’s despite, she suggested, being hobbled by more reckless UK Government policies.
Sridhar, an American, says she has no view on independence and rejects any notion her views on the pandemic have been coloured by politics. She admits, however, a great respect for Nicola Sturgeon, admiring her determination to seek expert advice on how governments elsewhere were tackling Covid.
The professor said: “She was keen to get the direct advice. I think it was refreshing for her because I was just saying this is what’s happening there, this is what’s happening there, how they’re building testing there, this is the hiccups.
“In some ways it was good for her to have a voice that was also internationally focused, very much in tune with what was happening in the US, India, Hong Kong. I always found her really interested to understand the latest data and the latest picture. She is someone who wants to understand everything and that’s why she asked for these briefings.
“She’s the one who has to go out there and make the decisions with the cabinet on really difficult issues and then communicate that, which I think she tried to do with her briefings.”
Sridhar insists Zero Covid was a realistic ambition and says Scotland came close to eliminating the virus after the first lockdown. At that time Sridhar was a proponent of the Zero Covid strategy favoured by China and at one time many island nations including New Zealand – a position echoed by the first minister for many months.
“We did eliminate it,” said Sridhar. “That’s what the sequencing shows. In that first lockdown there were days when we had one or two cases.
“If Scotland was an island we could have tested sensibly, we could have found cases and then have really strict checks on our borders and hold for vaccines and have regular life as much as possible. A lot of islands did that. It wasn’t just New Zealand. Many others, Fiji, Bali, chose that strategy because they could. But we couldn’t.”
China is one of the few countries still trying (and failing) to achieve Zero Covid while Sturgeon accepted some months ago we would have to live with wave after wave of reinfections.
Sridhar has also changed her position and admits Zero Covid can’t be achieved until scientists develop a sterilising vaccine which prevents transmission.
She said: “If we had that kind of vaccine we’d have eliminated Covid because there would be no one left who is susceptible but there haven’t been any clinical trials yet that look promising so it’s not around the corner.
“I think we’ll get there. It’s a question of how many years. There is a lot of money going into it – the Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust and the big research
funders are throwing money at it. The problem with this virus is it mutates. This is why pharma companies haven’t developed an Omicron-specific vaccine because by the time they develop it we’ll be on the next variant.
“They’re trying to get ahead of it by going for the moon shot. Something that can protect you fully and give a broadbased immunity. They’re working on a pan-coronavirus vaccine which looks closer. It would cover many variants and also Sars and Mers, which would be great but, again, it wouldn’t stop you getting infected.”
In the meantime, Sridhar warns we will have to live with high numbers of cases in the community and the threat of a more infectious and dangerous variant to come. She said most of us will have to be vaccinated again soon as immunity wanes over time and having Covid doesn’t stop you getting it again.
Sridhar said: “We’re already seeing in the US the FDA is recommending another dose of vaccine for everyone over 50. I think we are going to see, in Britain, the rollout of vaccines similar to the first vaccine rollout, going down through the age groups.”
Her book concludes that the pandemic will eventually recede into the background, probably in the next two years, as the vaccine is rolled out to more and more countries. However, she says widespread Covid testing remains vital, which is why she questions the decision to stop handing out free kits in Scotland from tomorrow.
Sridhar said: “I think it’s quite shortsighted to take it away. It has enabled people to make micro decisions that affect the larger trajectory. So, you’re not going to go and see elderly grandparents if you’re testing positive. A lot of businesses have used it to remain open. And of course testing will now become a luxury good. If you can pay for a test, you’ll pay for it and if you can’t you’re just going to risk it and go out. I don’t know why the Scottish Government ended free testing but my sense of it was there was no money. For so much of it, and I hint at this in the book, money comes from the UK Government and so you can only do what you get money for.
“The money (for free testing) would have to come from your basic running of the NHS so it’s a really tricky one. The Scottish Government has powers to do some things but not others.
“I guess they could have made a decision to continue paying for it and pull it from somewhere else but already the budgets are constrained here. I think they would have liked to continue it but the issue became a financial one.”