When not advising the Scottish government on its pandemic response, Devi Sridhar is being interviewed by TV news channels, writing opinion articles for The Guardian or . Throughout, she has been unafraid to call out governments when she thinks their response to covid-19 has been wrong. She tells Â鶹´«Ă˝Â why scientists aren’t to blame for lockdowns, and why we shouldn’t become complacent about the virus’s toll.
When did you realise this was going to be a global health crisis?
It was when Wuhan went into lockdown. You realised that if China, with its resources and surveillance systems, was struggling, then how would poor countries manage? You could see that this was unlikely to be like other events.
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Has the pandemic changed perceptions of science?
On the positive side we see more collaboration and sharing. On the flipside, there’s a lot of anger towards scientists for the lockdown measures, for the loss people have experienced. My point is: it’s not scientists. If your house is on fire, you don’t blame the firefighters.
What has the pandemic taught us about public health?
If you look at death rates per cases, parts of the world have really low death rates. It’s due to their health system being able to cope, but also the underlying health of their population. You do better with covid if you’re healthier. I hope we’ll now think more about the layers of protection we give people, not just vaccines and testing, but [improving] their underlying health.
Is now a good time to win some of the UK’s old public health battles, like obesity?
Definitely. What has been fantastic is people have realised how much they can do locally outside. Even in the brutal Scottish winter, people were outside. We also saw how restrictions and covid hit poor people harder. How do we address that inequality? It’s not enough to tell people to eat better and exercise more. They have to be able to afford it and have time to do it.
Should countries that have pursued a zero covid-19 approach pivot to a strategy of full vaccination?
That’s where they’re going. I don’t see this as a bad move. Imagine if New Zealand vaccinates everyone and escapes the pandemic with, say, less than 50 deaths. Their playbook worked. They bought time for a vaccine, in a way that saved economies and lives.
I get people saying: “You’ve U-turned, you were all about zero covid.” But if you’re building a house, and you don’t have tools, you build a house as best you can. If all of a sudden you get more tools – and now we have a vaccine and therapeutics – then you build a different kind of house.
On the subject of people commenting on your opinions, how have you coped with being in the limelight through the pandemic?
I see it as part of my job. Have I got everything right? No. Hopefully I’ve gotten more right than wrong. What people say of you on social media is not reflective of real life. When people define themselves by social media, problems occur. I define myself by: am I doing good science, do my peers think what I’m saying is accurate?
Should restrictions in England be lifted on 21 June?
If the government postpones the lifting of restrictions by two more weeks after 21 June, how many more people can have second doses, first doses? That should be the debate. Scientists are not saying lockdown forever, we’re saying [wait] two more weeks. Hold, and support those businesses [that stay closed for longer].
How well prepared is the world for the next pandemic?
The one thing we won’t see is complacency. The areas of the world that did better – it’s because they had previous experience of what infectious diseases can do if you don’t move quickly.
The big thing that’s going to be looked at are the [which advise against travel bans]. The big question for me is how to stop exporting viruses when they appear. That’s still a debate we’re not having.
Do you think the end is in sight?
For rich countries, I think the worst is behind us. I’m worried about low and middle-income countries. This is going to end up as a classic global health issue, where rich countries forget about it but it continues to take a major toll in poor settings.
But science is racing ahead with the [universal coronavirus] vaccine, and there’s been huge technology leaps towards mRNA vaccines, [which is good news in our fight against] malaria and HIV. It might be that in 50 years, kids are not dying from malaria because we can vaccinate them. There might be ways we emerge from this in a better way.
