Campaigners for better public health measures during Covid ‘branded extremists’

A campaigner for children with long Covid has told an inquiry that a senior Scottish Government official branded parents and advocates calling for improved care “extremists” during an online question and answer session.

Giving evidence at the Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry, Long Covid Kids chief operating officer Helen Goss said she had heard the comments at a webinar and question and answer session in September 2021 with the Scottish Government’s national clinical director, Jason Leitch, and he later apologised to her privately.

Ms Goss told Stuart Gale KC, co-lead counsel to the inquiry, that she had attended the session “to listen” but had signed in to the event “very early” and “all the cameras and mics were switched on”.

She added: “As far as I am aware, Jason Leitch was not aware that his camera was on because the host of the webinar said to him: ‘I hope that everyone is nice to you with their questions this evening’.”

Ms Goss said Mr Leitch went on to refer to “parents, advocates and campaigners” who were calling for further mitigations and public health measures as “extremists”.

She told the inquiry: “He referred to parents, advocates and campaigners who were campaigning for mitigations and public health measures as extremists.

“He said that they were either the extremists on one end who were telling him that he was destroying children’s education, and keeping schools closed and on the other end, the extremists who were saying that he’s harming our children, and that he needed to do more.

“So I sent a little message into the chat function of that webinar, and I said: ‘You know, I don’t think Mr Leitch was aware that we heard his comments about extremist parents before the recording started’.”

Mr Leitch then went on to send Ms Goss a private response to apologise for his language.

She added: “I just think it’s really important to highlight that because I think that shows potentially what the government were feeling at the time: that people who were campaigning for the health and wellbeing of children had extreme views.

“I don’t believe that the health of children is an extreme view.”

During her evidence, Ms Goss also detailed her own personal circumstances with her daughter who suffers from long Covid.

She said she had spent “many an evening crying on the bathroom floor” because she had “absolutely no idea what to do next”.

Ms Goss added: “The impact on families is life changing, devastating. It has broken up families.

“Parents and carers have lost their jobs because they have to care full-time now for their sick child.

“Impacts are so far reaching that our lives are completely different.”

Her daughter is receiving private healthcare for her long Covid symptoms because they had “given up” trying to get any NHS support and claimed they were not up to date with the latest research on the issue.

Ms Goss ended her evidence by urging the Scottish Government to “recognise the significance” of long Covid in children.

Earlier on Thursday, the inquiry heard women and children experienced an “intensification” of domestic abuse during the pandemic.

In evidence from Scottish Women’s Rights Organisations, a group comprising five charitable bodies, the inquiry was told measures such as lockdown created a situation that was “favourable” to abusers, and left fewer opportunities for victims to seek support or flee.

There was also a “perfect storm” over housing for domestic abuse victims seeking refuge, which meant there was no emergency accommodation for them for “enormous swathes of time” during the pandemic, it said.

The inquiry, before Lord Brailsford, continues.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “We are co-operating fully with the UK Covid-19 Inquiry and the Scottish Covid Inquiry and will follow all of the evidence given closely.

“We support both inquiries in their work to explore the handling of the pandemic and to identify the vital lessons we all need to learn.

“It would not be appropriate to comment on detailed evidence presented to either inquiry at this stage.”