Jason Leitch disagrees with adviser on whether virus was almost eliminated
Professor Jason Leitch has said he believes coronavirus was almost eliminated in Scotland last summer – just 24 hours after his colleague said the country has never been close to that point.
Professor Mark Woolhouse, chair of infectious disease at Edinburgh University and an advisertothescottishgovernment,toldholyrood’scovid-19 Committee on Thursday that despite new daily cases dropping as low as just two in one day in July, Scotland did not get close to elimination of the virus.
Last June, First Minister Nicolasturgeonsaidscotland was “not far away” from eliminating coronavirus, and she has since repeated the sug
gestion the country had nearly eradicated the virus before new strains were brought in through overseas and crossborder travel.
Citing a lack of testing, Professor Woolhouse told MSPS: “Scotland was not close to elimination at any stage during this epidemic.”
Butscotland’snationalclinical Director, Professor Leitch, has now said that he does not agreewithhiscolleague,afact hedescribedas“healthy”atthe Scottish Government's coronavirusbriefingonfriday,and headdedotheradvisersalsodo not accept Prof Woolhouse’s assertions.
“We rarely play those scientific debates out live at parliamentary committees and live on TV, but that’s the nature of the pandemic,” Prof Leitch said.
While he conceded there was not as much testing being done last summer as there is now, Prof Leitch said there were only nine admissions to hospital in the week of July 18 andnopatientsweremovedto intensivecarebetweenjune18 and July 7.