Unvarnished truth over deaths is vital

For the first time the real scale of Covid-related deaths in Scotland’s care homes has been revealed. Around 3,400 such deaths have been notified to a specialist Crown Office unit set up as part of a probe initiated by Lord Advocate James Wolffe last year.

The figure equates to around one in three of all Covid-related deaths which have been reported in Scotland.

For the very many families who suffered the anguish of losing a relative who was living in a care environment, the newly published data confirms what they already knew.

In essence, there was a real and particular problem related to Covid-19 and the care home network.

But what the statistics do not do is provide the context around those deaths.

That is vital if lessons learned for the future.

For example, were the deaths inevitable given the novel nature of the virus and its virulence?

Or were some of the deaths preventable had procedures around the handling of patients and infection control been more robust?

Many will also want to know whether deaths could have been prevented in the early weeks of the pandemic if Covid patients had been tested prior to being discharged from hospital into a care home environment.

It may take a public inquiry to get answers to these questions – and many more that the pandemic has thrown up – but answered they must be.

The process may produce some hard and uncomfortable truths, but the families of those who died – and the people of Scotland itself – must have the unvarnished truth. are to be