{"id":35507,"date":"2023-06-29T07:51:35","date_gmt":"2023-06-29T07:51:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=35507"},"modified":"2023-06-29T07:51:50","modified_gmt":"2023-06-29T07:51:50","slug":"scotland-sturgeon-and-john-swinney-to-give-evidence-at-covid-inquiry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2023\/06\/29\/scotland-sturgeon-and-john-swinney-to-give-evidence-at-covid-inquiry\/","title":{"rendered":"Scotland: Sturgeon and John Swinney to give evidence at Covid inquiry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney are to give evidence at the UK\u2019s Covid inquiry<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sturgeon, who stood down as first minister earlier this year and the former deputy first minister will appear at the ongoing probe into the UK\u2019s handling of the Coronavirus pandemic on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Launched by Boris Johnson in May 2021, the inquiry looks into decision-making in Westminster and devolved governments in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland \u2013 and examines how well prepared the UK was for the pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is being led by Baroness Hallett, who led the inquiry on the London 7\/7 bombings. Hearings are expected to continue until 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A separate Scottish inquiry looking at the impact north of the border has yet to hold public hearings after its chairwoman quit along with members of her legal team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among those who have already given evidence include Jeremy Hunt, the UK health secretary, and former prime minister David Cameron.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NHS Scotland chief executive Caroline Lamb and Gillian Russell, the Scottish Government\u2019s director for safer communities, answered questions on Wednesday followed by former health secretary Jeanne Freeman, though her session was impacted by technical issues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scotland\u2019s former chief medical officer Catherine Calderwood\u2019s planned appearance was rescheduled to another day. The inquiry declined to provide an explanation for the late rearrangement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018More should have been done to prepare for lockdown\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The UK must be prepared to hit a \u201cpandemic hard\u201d and lock down if necessary to prevent disease spreading, Matt Hancock has said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former health secretary told the inquiry that more should have been done to prepare for a lockdown before coronavirus began to spread around the UK in early 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat everybody missed in the western world was the lockdowns were going to be necessary,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He told Hugo Keith KC, lead counsel to the inquiry, that lessons must be learned, adding that the main issue was not that the pandemic preparedness plan had been focused on flu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said: \u201cIt is central to what we must learn as a country that we\u2019ve got to be ready to hit a pandemic hard: that we\u2019ve got to be able to take action \u2013 lockdown action if necessary \u2013 that is wider, earlier, more stringent than feels comfortable at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd the failure to plan for that was a much bigger flaw in the strategy than the fact that it was targeted at the wrong disease.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hancock added: \u201cThe doctrinal flaw was the biggest by a long way because if we\u2019d had a flu pandemic, we still would have had the problem of no plan in place for lockdown, no prep for how to do one, no work on what, how best to lock down with the least damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI understand deeply the consequences of lockdown and the negative consequences for many, many people \u2013 many of which persist to this day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney are to give evidence at the UK\u2019s Covid inquiry. Sturgeon, who stood down as first minister earlier this year and the former deputy first minister will appear at the ongoing probe into the UK\u2019s handling of the Coronavirus pandemic on Thursday. Launched by Boris Johnson in May 2021, the inquiry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":35508,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[64,12],"tags":[9204,5090,157,5313,5222,10868,1677,10391,11403,10196,8220,2264,12634,6449,8248,10318,3874,8235,3684,9445,3570,4435,7964,2695,11973,5485,3174,5151,9037,5150,12605,1254,6267,3954,10415,36,594],"class_list":["post-35507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-fitness","category-world-news","tag-border","tag-boris","tag-boris-johnson","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid","tag-covid-inquiry","tag-david-cameron","tag-declined","tag-disease","tag-first-minister","tag-flu","tag-government","tag-health","tag-ireland","tag-jeremy-hunt","tag-john-swinney","tag-lead","tag-lockdown","tag-london","tag-matt-hancock","tag-nhs","tag-nicola-sturgeon","tag-north","tag-northern-ireland","tag-one","tag-pandemic","tag-prime-minister","tag-scotland","tag-scottish","tag-sturgeon","tag-uk","tag-wales","tag-westminster","tag-will","tag-work","tag-world","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}