A LEADING public health expert says she was “shocked and appalled” to hear what was going on in Downing Street during the early stages of the coronavirus crisis.

Professor Linda Bauld, of the University of Edinburgh, reacted to Dominic Cummings’ testimony about Boris Johson’s handling of the pandemic.

The Prime Minister’s former top aide gave a damning assessment of the Tory administration as he gave evidence to a Westminster joint committee.

Bauld, interviewed on BBC Scotland’s Debate Night, condemned the Westminster government over its failure to learn lessons due to a sense of “exceptionalism”.

She said: “I was really shocked and appalled. He used terms like ‘lions led by donkeys’ when he was talking about able civil servants.

“I think governments need to take collective responsibility for decisions that have been made and he was at the heart of government for part of that.

“I think what really shocked me the most is he was playing back what many people in the public health community had been saying from very early on in the pandemic about how you approach this.”

READ MORE: Cummings declares Johnson unfit to lead and says Hancock should have been fired

The public health expert, who stated that a “blame game” is “unhelpful”, was nevertheless scathing in her criticism of leading politicians.

She continued: “It was the exceptionalism that I think came across from a UK perspective and I think affected all parts of the UK – that we didn’t need to learn from south-east Asia, that we didn’t need to learn from global health … and countries that have dealt with this previously.

“I think that’s something we’re going to be reflecting on for a long time.”

In a series of explosive claims, Cummings said the UK Government was not operating on a “war footing” in February 2020 as the global crisis mounted, with the Prime Minister on holiday and “lots of key people were literally skiing”.

It was also alleged the PM wanted to be injected with Covid-19 live on TV to show it was nothing to be scared of.

Cummings concluded that Johnson is unfit for office and said Health Secretary Matt Hancock should be sacked.

Hancock has said he did not watch all of Cummings' testimony because he was "dealing with getting the vaccination rollout going...and saving lives".

He later refuted the “unsubstantiated allegations” when answering an urgent question on the claims in the Commons.