UK Covid Inquiry Today: Jason Leitch and Devi Sridhar appear amid fallout from Nicola Sturgeon WhatsApp row
Recap with The Scotsman after National Clinical Director Professor Jason Leitch gave evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.
Live: Jason Leitch faces the UK Covid-19 Inquiry
Key Events
- The UK Covid-19 Inquiry continues to sit in Edinburgh to examine the Scottish pandemic response
- National Clinical Director Professor Jason Leitch is to give evidence
- This comes after it was revealed Chief Medical Officer Professor Sir Gregor Smith encouraged colleagues to delete their WhatsApps
Prof Leitch has been asked about why the Scottish media briefings took a different tone from UK media briefings.
He says this was not a specific decision, but a different tone developed over the course of the pandemic.
Prof Leitch said: “We were led by the former first minister in her way of dealing with the media and public communications.
“Therefore we fitted into that environment
“There was a decision about not using data the UK Government often used such as slides, we decided not to do that because we thought that wasn’t the way the Scottish public wants to hear from us.
“We took long series of questions - that model was designed by our news and communications team in light of the former first minister’s preferences, and we fitted into that.”
Straight back into WhatsApp messages.
Going back to messages sent by former senior civil servant Ken Thomson reminding people to clear their WhatsApp messages because they are discoverable under FOI (freedom of information). Prof Leitch has been asked about this.
Prof Leith said: “FOI rules are not as simple as holding onto every record.
“My position remains I followed the guidance.”
Take a look at our explainer on Ken Thomson: https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/uk-covid-inquiry-who-is-ken-thomson-what-has-the-former-senior-scottish-government-civil-servant-said-about-covid-whatsapp-messages-and-nicola-sturgeon-4487932
Counsel has said there were suggestions advice was given based on political differences during the pandemic. Prof Leitch says this is “categorically untrue”.
The counsel is now looking through messages between Prof Leitch and former finance secretary Kate Forbes ahead of her first Covid briefing. The counsel says this shows the briefings were “not well organised” and subject to change at the last minute.
Prof Leitch says this is “not fair” and “flippant”.
He added: “However, there is some truth in the fact we didn’t know which clinical advisors were doing it and switched around on short notice.
“That is partly our fault and partly the communication team’s fault.”
Jason Leitch is now being asked about a Q&A where he admitted to making “missteps” and branded lockdown an “old-fashioned approach to a disease that is going around the world in an aeroplane”.
He said: “What I said about it being old-fashioned was misunderstood.
“When you have an infectious disease you don’t understand, the only thing you have in the public health toolbox is to take infected individuals and separate them from society.
“That’s what happened with smallpox and it’s what happens with unknown infectious disease.
“That’s why lockdown was required.
“I didn’t suggest it wasn’t the right thing to do, there were no vaccines and no therapeutics so it was the only thing left.
“I think in hindsight with the knowledge we have now about how it affects different age groups and the missed education opportunities we couldn’t understand at the time, there might be further reflection in future if it was exactly the same when it comes to the closure of schools.
“Everyone in western Europe except Sweden closed down their school.
“We understand children in the main, not 100 per cent, were not seriously ill from Covid unless they had underlying conditions, healthy children didn’t get sick.
“But their ability to spread it in the community was a higher risk so it was not just about protecting children, it was about protecting staff and their families.”
Our Health Correspondent Joseph Anderson has his take on Professor Jason Leitch's appearance at the inquiry: https://www.scotsman.com/health/uk-covid-inquiry-jason-leitch-oversaw-star-chamber-whatsapp-group-that-automatically-deleted-messages-4489145
That's the end of Professor Jason Leitch's evidence session - we now move on to Professor Devi Sridhar, a public health expert from Edinburgh University.
Prof Sridhar says other countries that frequently deal with polio and ebola outbreaks didn’t find lockdown “crazy”, but more just part of “real life”.
The counsel asks if countries like Britain didn’t look to lower income countries for advice about dealing with the virus because of biases.
Prof Sridhar said: “Of course.
“There was a lack of humility to learn from on the ground experience from teams working day-to-day outbreaks of diseases.”
Prof Sridhar says the swine flu outbreak made people in Scotland complacent.
She says the mass spread of swine flu was narrowly missed and it was a case of “boy who cried wolf”, so that made people more complacent about the early warnings of coronavirus.
She said a lot of other diseases such as cholera do not spread globally and there has not been a fully global pandemic since 1918.
She said: “Swine flu led to complacency because it fizzled out.
“We overreacted.”
Prof Sridhar says Britain was “on the most relaxed side” on testing and quarantine.
She said: “Norway and Australia managed the pandemic better because they could manage the influx of patients - we were very lax about that.”
Prof Sridhar said: “There is no point if you have a land border in not having a joint approach.
“The African Union states worked on that to manage land borders.
“It is in every country’s interest to protect their neighbours as well, we needed to have everyone going in the same direction.”
Moving now onto wearing face masks.
Prof Sridhar said: “We debated for too long on ‘do masks work?’, instead of showing they come from clinical settings and construction sites where they do work.
“That became a sticking point, wanting to have a standard of evidence that was high rather than saying people want to know how to protect themselves.
“There wasn’t enough masks for doctors so how could we recommend to the public to wear them when doctors on wards couldn’t access the appropriate kit they needed?
“We need to acknowledge more that some people don’t like wearing masks because they see it as an infringement of their freedom, and for children they need to see faces.
“Those views are very important to have here, but that’s a separate question to ‘do masks work?’, and more ‘are they an appropriate intervention?’
“If we had moved to that we could have had a more helpful debate, rather than having those who are pro-maks saying those not wearing masks were selfish, and those not wearing masks saying they don’t work.
“I wish we had been more constructive.”
Prof Sridhar is now being asked about her relationship with former first minister Nicola Sturgeon during the pandemic.
She says they got on well and spoke regularly, and agreed they needed to suppress the number of cases over the summer months.
Prof Sridhar said: “I didn’t know who else she was speaking to.
“She reached out to me for independent views and I knew she was getting advice from her government advisors, so when she reached out to me I thought she just wanted an additional view.
“We both shared a deep commitment to finding a way through this.
“I have similar relationships with a number of politicians like Jeremy Hunt and I work with others in the States, Germany and Australia.
“It is not unusual, especially during the pandemic, to have direct access to someone senior.”
She added: “[Nicola Sturgeon] didn’t try to influence what I was saying in any way.”
And we are back - hope you all had a nice lunch break. I certainly did - had some chicken and mushroom soup, which is perfect for the stormy weather outside.
Counsel Jamie Dawson KC is back to questioning Professor Devi Sridhar.
Prof Sridhar says she was not part of any WhatsApp groups which needed to be handed over to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.
She approached the Scottish Government to find out if her Twitter DMs between her and the former first minister Nicola Sturgeon needed to be handed over.
She says no one approached her to hand over her Twitter DMs because most of the conversation was around WhatsApp.
Professor Devi Sridhar said: “We were facing thousands of deaths a day and health workers were burning out.
“I felt England was trying to lift [restrictions] very quickly without having the structures in place to suppress it and it was worrying.”
She added she felt Scotland needed to be more cautious than England.
Messages have also been shown where Nicola Sturgeon encourages Prof Sridhar to speak to her about the pandemic.
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