'We should have been much tougher' : Sturgeon admits mistakes in Scotland's pandemic response as studies show travel caused second wave

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has acknowledged mistakes “will have been made” in Scotland’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, as a new report shows the country was close to eliminating the virus during the first lockdown, but national and international travel re-seeded it.

A report to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) indicates the second wave of Covid-19 was caused by new strains of the virus brought into Scotland from abroad or other parts of the UK.

Its authors include academics from the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews, as well as figures from NHS Lothian, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and Public Health Scotland.

"If you read this genomic sequencing report, it would not be an unreasonable conclusion to say we should have been much, much tougher on travel restrictions earlier in the year,” said Ms Sturgeon.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon before giving an update on Covid restrictions in the Scottish Parliament.

Asked if the report indicates that not closing Scotland’s borders and lifting lockdown restrictions in June were mistakes, Ms Sturgeon said: “There will be people who read it and describe it like that. I have always been very clear, we will have made mistakes and it may be that we look at this with hindsight [...] and say maybe we should have done something differently, and I will never, ever stand here and try to pretend that has not been the case.”

Giving details of the report at the Scottish Government’s coronavirus daily update on Wednesday, National Clinical Director Jason Leitch said: "At the start of the pandemic about 300 different strains of Covid were introduced across Scotland and as we know, the virus then spread extensively across the population.

"These reports have confirmed that following the first lockdown the majority of the Covid virus strains that had been circulating in the population were eliminated.

"The report then demonstrates that as we moved into the second wave Covid infections were caused by whole new strains of the virus that had been introduced into Scotland from elsewhere.

"It’s been possible to trace many of these genomic strains to countries outside of Scotland, some to other parts of the UK, some much further afield.

"He added: "We’ve learned that the first lockdown was successful in all but eliminating the virus from Scotland. Secondly, we’ve learned that once as a society we were allowed to travel again, we brought fresh new strains into Scotland, which started our second wave."

"Thirdly, these reports confirm for us that the virus is much more likely to spread in areas of high population density.”

Professor Leitch said the report’s findings will inform Scottish Government decisions in future about the length of quarantine, airport testing and travel restrictions. He reiterated advice to people not to travel over the Christmas period if possible.

When asked if the country should have followed a response more similar to that of New Zealand, which introduced strict border controls and has reported just three new cases of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours compared to Scotland’s 897, Ms Sturgeon said: “New Zealand has taken a different approach in some respects to other countries.

"They've not been able to get through this virus with no changes to how they live their lives, they have chosen to effectively seal off New Zealand and not have people travelling in and out.

"That will have an impact on New Zealand, but it has led to certain things that they can do domestically. It’s a choice they have made. Every country has had to make choices.

"Scotland is not New Zealand, geographically we are different obviously, and the degree of integration with our near neighbours is different, so some of those choices had we taken them here they would have manifested themselves very differently for Scotland.

"We compare different countries, but in doing that you have to understand the different context that countries are in, and whatever we do has consequences and there would have been consequences to that as well.

"We try to learn from experience and adapt our approach as we go on this as on everything else.”

Some health experts have long been calling for Scotland to take virus prevention approach more similar to that of New Zealand.

Edinburgh University chair of public health and member of the Scottish Government Covid-19 Advisory Group Devi Sridhar has been a vocal advocate of this approach since the beginning of the pandemic.

"The only way to stop constant increases in the coronavirus is to eliminate community transmission and to use robust test, trace and isolate policies to continue catching imported cases and clusters as they emerge,” she wrote in a New York Times article published in August, entitled “we will pay for our summer holidays with winter lockdowns”.

Professor Sridhar called the new report to SAGE “vital for understanding what happened in Scotland”.

It analyses the spread of Covid-19 lineages introduced to Scotland during the first wave and compares them with those responsible for the second wave. The authors find that while the first period of lockdown in Scotland brought the first wave under control, the lack of restrictions on travel between high and low prevalence areas immediately following it allowed the second wave to begin.

The first wave is measured from February to July, and the second wave from August onwards.

The authors state: “The two main lessons to be learned are (i) the lockdown was associated with a reduction in infection numbers and virus diversity, and (ii) once the virus is brought under control, restricting movement into geographical regions with very low

prevalence is important to prevent re-introductions.”

It is estimated that half of Covid-19 strains were introduced to Scotland from England, with 24 per cent from the rest of Europe and 7-8 per cent each from Wales, Asia and North America.

The study authors point out that Covid-19 was also spread from Scotland to these areas, as noted by the First Minister and Professor Leitch in the coronavirus briefing.

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