Professor Dame Sally Davies has said she is “sorry” to the relatives who lost loved ones during the Covid outbreak.
The former chief medical officer for England was giving evidence at the official UK Covid-19 Inquiry when she became emotional, recalling the “harrowing” cases she had been told of.
Under questioning from lead counsel Hugo Keith KC, Dame Sally took a moment to apologise to the families of coronavirus victims.
Maybe this is the moment to say how sorry I am to the relatives who lost their families
Dame Sally Davies
She said: “Maybe this is the moment to say how sorry I am to the relatives who lost their families.
“It wasn’t just the deaths, it was the way they died. It was horrible.”
She told barrister Hugo Keith KC: “I heard a lot about it from my daughter on the front line as a young doctor in Scotland.
“It was harrowing and it remains horrible.”
The inquiry was told that Dame Sally, who was England’s chief medical officer between 2010 and 2019, had total independence of thought and ability to advise.
Now a master at Trinity College Cambridge, she explained that in her role she tried to help policy teams know what the latest stance was.
Earlier, she had told the inquiry that the impact of the pandemic on the UK was not down to health inequality but rather the “lack of resilience in the public’s health”,
Dame Sally said: “One reason we had a bad outcome from Covid, and I presume would get from flu, is because of what you have been told are health inequalities.
“I would talk about the lack of resilience in the public’s health; 25% of children in year six are obese; 60% of adults are obese or overweight; we have high levels of diabetes.
“How does Government play a role in improving the health of people? Because there is a Libertarian view that it’s all down to each of us as individuals and how strong we are, but of course it isn’t about that.
“It’s about the structure of our society and how to make the healthy choice the easy choice, whether it’s activity or what we eat.”