ONE of the Scottish Government’s own advisers has contradicted Nicola Sturgeon by claiming that the country has never been close to eliminating Covid-19 at any stage of the pandemic.

Professor Mark Woolhouse, chair of infectious disease epidemiology at Edinburgh University told Holyrood’s Covid-19 Committee that the actual number of positive coronavirus cases in Scotland never fell below 500, according to “very well validated” modelling.

The First Minister has repeatedly insisted that Scotland was “close” to eliminating the virus after the first wave last summer – before infections were reseeded from other parts of the UK and from overseas.

Professor Woolhouse said: “Scotland was not close to elimination at any stage during this epidemic.”

Although the number of cases actually reported were low between the first and second waves, he argued it is a “misinterpretation” to suggest Covid-19 was close to elimination because of the sheer number of infected people who did not get tested.

There was a “dramatic increase” in positive cases among younger people who possibly did not have symptoms that were discovered when testing capacity increased, Prof Woolhouse said.

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He explained that genome sequencing to identify strains “showed quite clearly that the lineages that were present in the first wave in Scotland were still present in the second wave”.

He concluded: “So we were not close to elimination in Scotland.”

Last June, Ms Sturgeon said Scotland was “not far away” from eliminating coronavirus and she has since repeated the suggestion the country had nearly eradicated the virus before new strains were brought in through overseas and cross-border travel.

Prof Woolhouse also argued the UK’s death rate is so high because governments focused on lockdown rather than protecting those most vulnerable to coronavirus.

Health Protection Scotland analysis he was involved with estimated that between half and three-quarters of all deaths in the first lockdown were because of infections acquired after the March 23 restrictions came into force.

“What that tells me is we didn’t pay nearly enough attention to doing things beyond lockdown to protect the vulnerable and care homes and the wider community,” he said. “We simply didn’t do that enough.

“All we had was shielding, which wasn’t a particularly effective policy according to most people, and a little bit of extra advice for the over-70s.

“We could have put so much more effort into protecting the people who needed protecting.

“We do now recognise this with care homes; we recognise for care homes we didn’t do enough.

“We need to recognise the same thing is true of the vulnerable people in the community; we didn’t do enough to protect them either.

“Lockdown did not save those peoples and save the majority of those people and I think that’s something we don’t have to reflect on very hard.”

Conservative health spokesperson, Donald Cameron, said: “It is quite clear the SNP have being spinning positive stories in relation to Scotland’s fight against Covid in order to suit their own narrative.

“We need the First Minister to be open and honest about what the virus prevalence has been at all times during the pandemic. Rather than trying to rewrite history about last summer, the SNP Government should listen to the evidence presented by one of their own respected scientific advisers.”

He added: “As we continue to fight the pandemic, we must see the SNP Ministers present accurate data at all times to the public.

“Otherwise we run the risk of compliance levels falling and the virus transmitting more widely in our communities due to a false narrative.”