More than 2,000 coronavirus deaths could have been prevented if Scotland went into lockdown two weeks earlier, scientists claim.
Epidemiologist's from the University of Edinburgh claim the death rate in Scotland could have been reduced by 80 per cent with earlier action.
The early intervention could have meant less than 600 deaths instead of the 2795 reported by NRS last week.
BBC Scotland’s Disclosure programme also reveals there was a secret outbreak of the virus in Edinburgh back in February, well before the first recorded cases in Scotland, but this was not disclosed to the public.
Despite knowing the virus had been in Scotland since at least late February, Scotland did not ban mass gatherings till March 16, or lockdown until March 25.
Scotland’s own advisory panel, featuring Professor Devi Scridhar, chair of public health at Edinburgh University, was set up two days after the lockdown was introduced.
Prof Scridhar, referring to the whole of the UK, told the programme there had “definitely” been more than enough information about the coming pandemic to have acted much sooner.
She said: “We should have been acting by mid-February. We could see that this was not easily a virus to be contained.”
Prof Dame Anne Glover, president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the former chief scientific advisor to the Scottish government, told the BBC, “Mistakes have been made and that has resulted in lives being lost.”
The BBC asked a team of epidemiological scientists at the University of Edinburgh to model what might have happened to Scotland’s death rates if we’d locked down sooner.
Prof Rowland Kao and his team developed a model which simulated the epidemiological behaviour of Scottish population.
He said: “While there’s quite a bit of uncertainty in what the final outcome will be, all those [projections] are now substantially below what actually happened.”
Allowing for uncertainty in much of the data around the virus, the study predicted the death toll would have been around 577.
The Scottish Government has refused to comment on the findings.
•BBC Disclosure: Scotland’s Lockdown will be shown on Monday at 8.30pm BBC1 Scotland.
