At 36, the American Devi Sridhar holds the chair of public health at the University of Edinburgh. Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, she has advised the Scottish government on its health policy. Thanks to longer restriction measures, Scotland managed to ” to crush “ the contaminations curve, she explains in an interview with the World, judging that the options selected by Brazil, Sweden or France “Are not reasonable”.
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What is the situation in Scotland now?
She is good but fragile. In total, 48% of adults have received at least one dose of the vaccine and the campaign is accelerating. Our hope is to have all adults immunized by mid-July. Then we will look at children, whether vaccines are available and safe. At the same time, there is great pressure to ease restrictions, as all the indicators are pointing in the right direction. Yesterday, for the first time in months, we did not record any deaths. The economic sector would like to resume everything normally. We ask them to be patient: we will ease the restrictions step by step, by April 26. We have started, indeed. But we don’t want to go off too quickly and endure a third wave. It is a delicate but encouraging moment of transition.
Is the schedule already established?
Yes, and announced. At the end of February, we reopened nursery and elementary schools and at the beginning of March secondary education, with staff numbers reduced by 50%. At the beginning of April we will re-authorize all outdoor activities and by the end of April it will be back to normal, including indoor gatherings. But we are monitoring the numbers very closely to make sure that this timeline is compatible with the evolution of the epidemic. We are vaccinating, we are mass testing and we are tracking the virus in wastewater to confirm this decline.
What was the peculiarity of the Scottish approach?
It was set up in April 2020. Until then, we were following the English position. But, when the UK government said it just wanted to flatten the curve, we felt we could do better than that: crush it. And we did, thanks to longer restriction measures. The virus had pretty much disappeared from Scotland last summer. For a month, no more deaths, no more hospitalizations. But, in August, tourism resumed, without quarantine. And the second wave has arrived. Slowly at first. In October and November, everything was still open, the situation seemed under control. But, with the variant B.1.1.7, both more contagious and more severe, we were forced to put in place a hard containment.
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