Scottish nationalists put a lot of stock in the mystical powers of independence, but this is a new one to Mr S: independence would apparently have improved Scotland’s response to Covid-19.
At least according to Devi Sridhar, professor of global public health at Edinburgh University and member of the Scottish government’s Covid-19 advisory group. Interviewed on Holyrood magazine’s podcast, she was asked whether a separate Scotland would have made different decisions on the pandemic. ‘Yes, definitely,’ she reportedly replied.
According to Holyrood, the academic added that ‘we could have hopefully been more like a Norway or a Denmark’ and said ‘if you look at the charts and the devolved nations, Scotland does come out in terms of lowest case numbers’. While acknowledging how high Scotland’s case numbers were at the outset of the pandemic, she pointed out that ‘in the summer, we got the numbers low’.
The magazine quotes her as saying:
‘So, yeah, I think it is really hard because we’re not getting the support that we require to be able to go the full way we want to go. It’s hard because, I think, you saw in the summer the talks about elimination and zero Covid, clear focus on getting numbers low – we never saw that clarity of vision from England and that’s really hard. We’re still not getting it, and I hope we will get it, but it might take a few more months.’
Perhaps someone should point out to the professor that despite having the power to enact public health regulations herself, Nicola Sturgeon’s own Covid policy has pretty much mirrored the UK-wide response throughout the pandemic. Or ask why Scotland has fared so badly, even though it has around a sixth of the population density of England.
Then again, this is not Professor Sridhar’s first foray into the political fray. As Mr Steerpike reported recently, she apologised last July for describing Unionists as ‘anti-Scottish’ and said they were angry because ‘Scotland is now doing well in its response to Covid-19’. She also tweeted that ‘it is the tragedy of history that when a serious pandemic hit the world where leadership & good governance were required, Donald Trump was US president & Boris Johnson was UK Prime Minister’.
There is one politician Professor Sridhar seems to rate though. She told the podcast:
‘I do feel much safer right now being in Scotland, knowing that there’s a leader in charge who takes the health of the public incredibly seriously and takes her job really seriously and is hard-working.’
She contended that ‘across the political spectrum… in daily life, anyone I speak to, regardless of what they believe or what party they support, has said that she has done a remarkable job’. Professor Sridhar insisted she wasn’t making ‘a political point’ but said she would ‘take the heat’ and ‘speak what I think is right’.
It looks like Sturgeon has a fan girl.
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