Even a basic examination of the latest Covid-19 death figures reveals the flaws in the Scottish Government’s coronavirus strategy.
Of the 4,000 fatalities, nearly 50% occurred in the country’s care homes. Nearly two thirds of adult homes have recorded an outbreak.
In March, the focus was understandably on protecting the NHS.
Nicola Sturgeon feared a surge in infections would break the health service.
Part of the approach was freeing up NHS beds by discharging patients to care homes and into the community.
The problem, as we now know, is patients were not tested for Covid-19 ahead of their transfer.
They unwittingly brought the virus with them.
Throw in care home staff who were not given any PPE and you have a disaster in incubation.
The hospital death toll - 1,854 - is also looking avoidably high.
Many of these cases would have been patients who fell ill outside of hospital and died inside.
But we also know that nearly 900 patients contracted the virus in non-covid wards. Around the same number of staff were also infected.
It should not take a professor in epidemiology to join the dots between community transmission, unprotected staff, discharged elderly patients and care homes.
The lack of joined-up thinking continues to be evident.
Some NHS boards are not delivering on testing, and nurses are worried about staff moving between wards and passing the virus on.
The Government plan was based on shoring up the NHS, but a series of errors resulted in the health service itself becoming a carrier.
