With the world's focus remaining firmly on the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, Professor Linda Bauld is lending her expert analysis to Herald subscribers.
She joins the team with a weekly column, where she'll be covering all things health and science.
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We caught up with Linda to get her thoughts on the pandemic and the news in the years to come.
How did you end up writing for a newspaper?
The world’s attention has turned to public health over the past 12 months, so The Herald thought now was the right time to ask a public health specialist to try their hand at a different type of writing. I’m used to drafting academic articles so this will be a new challenge for me.
What’s been the highlight of your career?
For six years I’ve combined my University roles with serving as Cancer Research UK’s cancer prevention adviser. It’s a huge privilege to work with a charity supporting life-saving research. I was also fortunate to be appointed as the Usher Chair at the University of Edinburgh in 2018. This is the oldest chair in public health in the UK so I’m following in the footsteps of giants in the field.
What’s your favourite part of Scotland and why?
There is something magical about Kilmartin Glen and the area around the Crinan canal. When I lived in Glasgow in the early 2000s I used to visit there regularly, and since I returned to Scotland and to Edinburgh I’ve been a few times, but not often enough.
What was the last book you read?
Kaye Adams and Vicky Allan’s ‘Still Hot’ which is a collection of personal accounts about the menopause. Very funny in places and great to read other women’s experiences. I’m 50 this year so it was timely!
What are you going to be writing about for The Herald?
I’ll be focusing on the latest developments in science, health and wellbeing - with a strong commitment to highlight how health is not evenly distributed in Scotland. We have a huge challenge to address inequalities.
What will be the biggest stories of 2021 and the next decade?
2021 will still be dominated by Covid-19 but we are going to be emerging from the crisis, so recovery is going to be a big theme. Looking ahead, science and health stories will focus on the environment, artificial intelligence, genomics and I hope breakthroughs in preventing and treating chronic conditions like cancer, heart disease, diabetes and more.
What do you make of the government’s (both) response to Coronavirus?
Governments around the world have struggled to address the pandemic. The UK and Scotland have been badly affected. Both governments have made mistakes and in Scotland over nine thousand people have lost their lives.
I’m sure I’ll be writing about where things went wrong and also where progress is being made. But I’ll be avoiding getting too far into the politics and try and stick to the science.
What’s next for Scotland in terms of coronavirus?
Vaccine roll out is going to be the main focus in the coming months. Key questions are about the extent of uptake (particularly in vulnerable groups), duration of protection, dosing and whether vaccines can respond to new variants.
Also how we can reconcile the need to keep focusing on the pandemic with other much bigger worries for health (i.e. backlog of untreated patients for other conditions), wellbeing (mental health in particular), education and the economy.
Who’s going to win the Holyrood election and why?
Hopefully the party with the best policies to promote and protect the health and wellbeing of all communities in Scotland, and one that can help us engage and adapt to international developments.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
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