UK Covid Inquiry: Jason Leitch told Kate Forbes 'there was swearing' in Nicola Sturgeon discussion about postponing Christmas parties

Professor Jason Leitch said “there was swearing” in an exchange with Nicola Sturgeon

National clinical director Professor Jason Leitch told a senior Scottish Government Cabinet member “there was swearing” in his discussion with Nicola Sturgeon about advice to postpone Christmas parties at the height of the pandemic.

Evidence released by the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, which is investigating the Scottish Government’s approach to the pandemic, showed a message exchange between Prof Leitch and Kate Forbes, who at the time was the Scottish finance secretary.

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Speaking on December 10, 2021, Prof Leitch said “no-one knew [Public Health Scotland] were going to say this”.

Scottish Government Daily Covid Briefing
New St. Andrews House - Edinburgh
Chief clinical Officer - Prof Jason Leitch
First Minister - Nicola SturgeonScottish Government Daily Covid Briefing
New St. Andrews House - Edinburgh
Chief clinical Officer - Prof Jason Leitch
First Minister - Nicola Sturgeon
Scottish Government Daily Covid Briefing New St. Andrews House - Edinburgh Chief clinical Officer - Prof Jason Leitch First Minister - Nicola Sturgeon

Amid rising cases of the Omicron strain of the virus, Dr Nick Phin, the director of public health at Public Health Scotland (PHS), urged people to “defer their Christmas parties to another time”. In an opening message to Ms Forbes, Prof Leitch said: “What a mess. Honestly!!! No-one knew PHS were going to say this.”

He said he planned to agree with the advice in a radio interview he was due to give later, urging people to “consider postponing parties”, but said he would stress they were not talking about “dinners or having family round”.

Responding, Ms Forbes said: “Grrr at PHS.”

Prof Leitch then said: “FM [Sturgeon] and I spoke at 11. There was swearing. From both of us.” Ms Forbes replied: “I might have contributed if I’d been on the call.”

Screen grab from the UK Covid-19 Inquiry live stream of a text exchange between Jason Leitch, National Clinical Director for the Scottish Government, and former finance secretary Kate Forbes MSP, which has been shown during his evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry hearing at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC), during its second investigation (Module 2) exploring core UK decision-making and political governance. Issue date: Wednesday January 24, 2024. PA Photo. See PA story INQUIRY Coronavirus. Photo credit should read: UK Covid-19 Inquiry/PA WireScreen grab from the UK Covid-19 Inquiry live stream of a text exchange between Jason Leitch, National Clinical Director for the Scottish Government, and former finance secretary Kate Forbes MSP, which has been shown during his evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry hearing at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC), during its second investigation (Module 2) exploring core UK decision-making and political governance. Issue date: Wednesday January 24, 2024. PA Photo. See PA story INQUIRY Coronavirus. Photo credit should read: UK Covid-19 Inquiry/PA Wire
Screen grab from the UK Covid-19 Inquiry live stream of a text exchange between Jason Leitch, National Clinical Director for the Scottish Government, and former finance secretary Kate Forbes MSP, which has been shown during his evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry hearing at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC), during its second investigation (Module 2) exploring core UK decision-making and political governance. Issue date: Wednesday January 24, 2024. PA Photo. See PA story INQUIRY Coronavirus. Photo credit should read: UK Covid-19 Inquiry/PA Wire

Speaking at one of the regular coronavirus briefings at the time, Ms Sturgeon said she also agreed with the advice, describing Christmas parties as “super-spreaders” of the new variant.

Omicron would go on to increase “exponentially” in the days after the messages were sent, leading Ms Sturgeon to urge Scots to limit Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day gatherings to just three households to slow the spread.

A PHS spokeswoman said: “The UK Covid-19 public inquiry is a legal process and it is not appropriate for PHS to comment on any evidence or witness statements given as part of proceedings. PHS is actively assisting the inquiry and will continue to support.”

Ms Forbes and the Scottish Government have been contacted for comment.

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The evidence was discussed as Professor Mark Woolhouse, an infectious disease epidemiology expert at the University of Edinburgh, told the inquiry the Scottish Government did not accept Covid-19 was “here to stay”.

Prof Woolhouse said politicians were “mistaken or misinformed” in their understanding of the virus, and said the public was “misled”.

Responding to questions from Jamie Dawson KC, counsel to the inquiry, Prof Woolhouse said: “I have to say, I didn’t understand the Scottish Government’s strategy over the summer of 2020. The emphasis was on a very, very cautious relaxation from the lockdown.

“It seemed to be important to the politicians that it was more cautious than the one in England, so they were emphasising that they didn’t articulate in any way that I understood, what they thought the public health benefit of this caution actually would be given what we said about a second wave.

“Then this segued into this idea that actually the falling cases in Scotland would somehow continue, we could end up in zero Covid. This was not consistent with the evidence that had been available since February 2020.”

He said the virus “transmits very poorly” outdoors, and lamented many people were arrested for taking part in outdoor activities such as mountain climbing.

Prof Woolhouse said: “There was pretty much zero public health benefit keeping us indoors. That wasn’t required at all – we never needed to do that. There are caveats, like if people are outdoors and being intimate, that’s something. There was never any need for that.”

Baroness Heather Hallett, the inquiry chairwoman, then interjected, asking the witness to name outdoor activities that were deemed acceptable during lockdown.

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Prof Woolhouse said: “You’d need to do a fairly detailed public health appraisal of where you drew the line. We, in the UK, arrested people for going on solo walks in the mountains. That is utterly absurd.

“That devalues the whole idea of social distancing, that anyone can see, this is nonsense. Another good example that was an absolute outcry in the summer of 2020 was that people were going to beaches.

“There was never an outbreak of Covid anywhere in the world linked to a beach. It was fine. People could go to the beach, but nonetheless, were very resistant to that.”

He said schools contributed “a little” to the spread of the virus, but this was “so little, that there was essentially no danger” that schools would take the UK past the “tipping point”.

Prof Woolhouse said while he accepted this was done as a precaution during the first lockdown, the UK Government “should have realised much, much more quickly based on the evidence from around the world”, arguing the UK could have taken a similar approach to Denmark, which reopened schools in May 2020.

The inquiry also heard from the professor there was “very, very little consideration” for the mental health of the population by enforcing a stay-at-home order.

He said: “To be fair, they were, I think, fairly quickly recognised by the Scottish Government. But when we took that decision, I don’t think that was at the forefront of people’s minds. There was a lot of concern about how well people would tolerate lockdown, but that was an unknown.

“I feel that discussion was more in the vein of, well, how long and severe a lockdown could we get away with that the public would tolerate, rather than actually looking at evidence of components of it and saying we didn’t need them.”

The inquiry was later shown an email Prof Woolhouse had sent in January 2020, warning the Scottish healthcare system would become overwhelmed if action was not taken within a year.

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