Tea & a chat on her last day as FM: what an incredible leader @NicolaSturgeon has been. Full of respect & admiration.

A wise, measured, & much-needed, evidence-based piece - thank you, @devisridhar theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

My latest column: at the age of 29, the promising England footballer Jeff Hall died of polio. This was after a vaccine had been available for 3 years. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

A big problem in Britain is how expensive fruits & vegetables are- Brexit hasn’t helped this issue at all. twitter.com/profkevinfento…

Important input- thanks Richard. I’ll be more careful with my language. Some of the people I know with disabilities/underlying health issues are far from weak- they are strong & brave. Have a lovely weekend 🙏🏼 twitter.com/richard5651623…

Such a beautiful, thoughtful, honest piece from @devisridhar. Covid struck and Britain locked down. Here’s what we learned from that – and what we must do next time. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Bats are known for being vectors of deadly diseases like Ebola and Nipah, yet typically tolerate such viruses well 🦇 This @Nature article explores how studying and understanding bat immune systems could help combat future disease outbreaks ⬇️ go.nature.com/3lFEMeB

ICYMI my latest column theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Those of us in teaching & mentoring positions have to take responsibility over our words with young people: telling a child they’re stupid can last a lifetime & badly affect their confidence. Telling someone their dreams are unrealistic can put them off a wonderful path.

What happened three years ago & why? 👇 And what’s the reality of Florida (my home state)… twitter.com/guardian/statu…

Thank you 🙏🏼 twitter.com/DrNChakrabarty…

Science has almost always found some kind of solution to help manage the impact of infectious diseases on humans: whether it’s vaccines, treatments, better clinical management, or better surveillance and public health containment. That’s a cause for optimism.

We are better than that as a society: we should have been about how the herd takes care of the weak. “Targeted protection” or “segmentation” – asking vulnerable people to shield while the rest of society got Covid – was a fantasy that didn’t work anywhere in the world

What didn’t work? Superficial and morally questionable debates pitting the young against the old. Pitting the healthy against the sick. Undermining the severity of Covid-19 by likening it to a bad cold or calling it a hoax. Telling those with cancer that their lives matter less.

What worked globally? There are lessons from many countries. From Japan, that masks work at limiting spread. From South Korea, that testing, tracing and supported isolation could suppress the virus without lockdowns. From Denmark, that schools could reopen quickly w/ mitigations.

Shouting about lockdown, or ignoring Covid completely, didn’t help: too many infections translated into hospitalisations. Vaccines and antivirals did provide the major solution. They managed to change the case conversion from an estimated 20% in January 2020 to 1-2% post-vaccine.

In Britain, community testing and border controls to limit imported cases weren’t even considered until mid-March, when the initial strategy to “just let it spread” failed, given the high hospitalisation rate of Covid-19. Lockdown was the emergency button pressed in panic.

A large part of the problem in Britain’s response was that we wanted it all. We wanted to maintain our pre-Covid-19 life, and, until hospitals were at the brink of collapse, didn’t want to discuss trade-offs.

Was the response by government proportionate? In these debates, there’s a clear survival bias. Those who can ask these questions survived. Those who died don’t have a chance to weigh in on whether government intervention was sufficient, or whether their deaths were preventable.

My latest column theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

A great insight into life on the frontline of the UK’s scientific response to Covid – from @adamjkucharski’s poker nights to @devisridhar’s yoga in the snow & @PeterHorby taking up windsurfing: telegraph.co.uk/global-health/… By @samueljlovett @SimonTownsley Produced by @KerryMcQueeney

Or as Shaggy said ‘It wasn’t me’. twitter.com/LBC/status/163…

Happy Wed ☀️ I’ve had a busy 2 weeks at work & haven’t exercised enough. It’s made me feel sluggish so today it’s a new day, new start-any movement is better than nothing. Simple goals: 1. More fruit/veg & less ultra-processed food. 2. 30 mins physical activity (like a 5K run).

I enjoyed meeting each one and putting together this portrait series! twitter.com/TelGlobalHealt…

Looking back on my years in @scotgov this is one of the policies I'm proudest of. It was controversial and difficult but I'm glad we persevered to overcome all the political and court challenges because, as this study suggests, it is saving lives 1/2 bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotla…

What beautiful, bright mornings to wake up to ☀️

Some of the world's leading makers of flu vaccines say they could make hundreds of millions of bird flu shots for humans within months if a new strain of avian influenza ever jumps across the species divide. reut.rs/3yVBM0A

A major frustration is that progress in public health around junk food, diet, and physical activity has kind of fallen to the wayside. We talk about having fresh fruit and vegetables and exercise now almost as a luxury, and that's sad. We have to keep highlighting that.

Good to interview @devisridhar (for the first time!) this week. Can we learn from Sweden? Yes - but not necessarily in the way that the lockdown sceptics like to claim Devi Sridhar: Yes, Sweden has lockdown lessons for us - we need to get healthier heraldscotland.com/news/23394957.…