A COVID adviser to the Scottish Government has said she was “really frustrated” by England’s strategy for managing the virus.

Devi Sridhar, who is the chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, was questioned at the UK Covid-19 Inquiry about an article she had contributed to entitled “Scotland could eliminate coronavirus if it were not for England”, which was published in June 2020.

In a statement she submitted to the inquiry, she explained how she offered her opinion on the two different approaches taken by England and Scotland.

She said the Scottish strategy “seemed to aim for maximum suppression”, while England’s approach appeared to be “to keep Covid-19 within NHS capacity and try to get back to normal as soon as possible”.

Throughout the questioning by Jamie Dawson KC, she talked about difficulties with achieving consensus between the two nations which she felt there needed to be more of.

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Asked if she felt this article and her contribution to it helped with that, she revealed her frustration with England’s approach.

She told the inquiry: “No it didn’t [help] but I should say when you talk to journalists you don’t know what the title is going to be, you don’t know what you’re going to be quoted on, you don’t know what’s going to be in it and if you take away the title – and I went back to read the article – I actually was emphasising we needed to have cohesion across the approaches.

“If I’m honest, I was really frustrated with not understanding England’s strategy because we are linked together.

“It did seem to be so clear that given the levels of immunity, given the level of death, given we didn’t want to have another lockdown, which was catastrophic in terms of the harms it raised, why you wouldn’t go for maximum suppression and just try to simmer Covid within a level.

“You could make a whole book about all my missteps with journalists and articles and media coverage, but the point was we didn’t have consensus and I really felt we should have consensus because it seemed clear to me what should be the steps going forward.”

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Sridhar earlier said there was a level of “frustration” around science being reserved as she branded Sage – the UK’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies – “incredibly secretive”.

The inquiry also heard how Nicola Sturgeon had warned Sridhar – who said she was subjected to death threats while she was an adviser - that the media could “twist” her words.

In a message exchange, Sridhar told the former first minister her words had been “twisted” in some articles by the media.

Sturgeon responded saying: “Don’t worry – I fully understand how the media can twist words, sometimes deliberately.

“I think what you say is powerful and clear though – and has had a big influence on my thinking.”

Sturgeon additionally said to Sridhar when she expressed concerns about breaking protocol that tackling the virus was more important.

Messages on Twitter/X between the pair in June 2020 showed Sridhar told Sturgeon she had drafted a note for the chief medical officer on key steps to managing outbreak in Scotland looking forward.

She said: “I’m happy to share a draft with you as well but don’t want to overstep or break protocol.”

Sturgeon replied: “That would be very helpful, (Don’t worry about protocol – tackling the virus more important than that and I’ll handle any issues on that front).”