Scotland’s response to Covid ‘among worst in world’ says SNP’s own health adviser
SCOTLAND’S response to the pandemic was among the worst in the world, one of the Scottish Government’s own advisers has admitted.
In a challenge to the hardline Covid-19 strategy pursued by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Professor Linda Bauld has criticised draconian lockdowns that saw Scotland grind to a halt time after time.
The Edinburgh University academic says the handling of the outbreak represented a monumental catalogue of failures.
Professor Bauld, given the task of identifying key lessons from the Covid catastrophe, insisted: ‘We just must do better next time.’
Scotland’s public inquiry into the response to the outbreak opened in
‘Many things about our response need improved’
May but has yet to hear evidence. However, Professor Bauld claims many scientists are already agreed on several major errors.
Speaking on the latest episode of the Academy of Social Sciences podcast The We Society, the public health expert – who is seconded to the Government as an adviser – said: ‘I think everybody would acknowledge that the UK, if you look at our mortality and the dipping in and out of lockdowns, those were highly damaging. And there are many things about our response which need to be improved.
‘If you want to be really scathing you can say that we were one of the worst countries in terms of managing the pandemic and a number of my colleagues would say that.
‘In the pandemic, I was hearing every week from teachers, parents, pupils, stakeholders, about the real harms that were not about addressing the virus, they were about the other things that we did, and it’s a really complex picture. We just must do better next time.’
Covid was identified in Scotland on March 1, 2020 and the UK put into lockdown three weeks later, with restrictions only largely lifted in July that year. Waves of restrictions dominated public life, including schools, visits to care homes and hospitals, and the hospitality industry, until April this year.
Many town and city centres have yet to recover from the dip in trade caused by working from home.
Professor Bauld said: ‘Focusing on a vaccine as a solution was fine, but the problem is that we needed to also look at non-pharmaceutical interventions: know where the infection is, have testing available, support people to isolate, give them good information, adequate financial support etc. Some of those things were much tougher for us.’
At her regular televised press conferences, the First Minister repeatedly insisted her strategy of ‘maximum suppression’ of the virus was the correct one.
Epidemiologist and Edinburgh University academic Professor Mark Woolhouse has also criticised the government’s approach.
He sits with Professor Bauld on the Standing Committee on Pandemic Preparedness – commissioned by Miss Sturgeon to produce recommendations on how Scotland can be better braced for another such outbreak – and wrote earlier this year: ‘Failing to protect the most vulnerable was perhaps the greatness weakness of our Covid19 response. In 2020, those who wanted to do more were shouted down by others who insisted suppressing the virus was the only acceptable strategy. It should have been obvious that by doing both you can save more lives and reduce time spent in lockdown.’
Scottish Tory Covid Recovery spokesman Murdo Fraser said: ‘It is crucial the Covid inquiry ensures lessons are learned from all aspects of the pandemic.’
Scottish Labour health spokesperson Jackie Baillie said: ‘At key points in the pandemic the SNP made disastrous decisions in lockstep with the UK Government. These mistakes cost lives and livelihoods and cannot be repeated. We need answers.’
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Our priority throughout has been to save lives and we sought to take the best decisions based on the best scientific and clinical evidence.’