Devi Sridhar
Devi Sridhar | |
---|---|
![]() Studio portrait, 2020 | |
Born | Devi Lalita Sridhar July 1984 (age 40)[4] Miami, Florida, U.S. |
Alma mater | University of Miami (BS) University of Oxford (MPhil, DPhil) |
Awards | Rhodes Scholarship (2002) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Public health[1] |
Institutions | University of Oxford University of Edinburgh London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine |
Thesis | The art of the bank: nutrition policy and practice in India (2006) |
Doctoral advisor | David Gellner[2][3] |
Website | www |
Devi Lalita Sridhar FRSE (born 1984) is an American public health researcher, who is both professor and chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.[5][6] Her research considers the effectiveness of public health interventions and how to improve developmental assistance for health.[1][7][8] Sridhar directs the University of Edinburgh's Global Health Governance Programme which she established in 2014.
Sridhar has written two books, The Battle Against Hunger: Choice, Circumstance and the World Bank[9] Governing Global Health: Who Runs the World and Why?, (co-written with Chelsea Clinton)[10] and Preventable: How a Pandemic Changed the World & How to Stop the Next One.[11] Following the West African Ebola virus epidemic, she worked with the Harvard Global Health Institute and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine to assess international responses to the outbreak and use it to better inform preparations with future pandemics. In 2020, Sridhar was part of the Royal Society's Data Evaluation and Learning for Viral Epidemics (DELVE) group which influences the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) committee of the government of the United Kingdom.[12] She also served as a member of the Scottish Government's COVID-19 advisory group set up to provide advice on how to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic in Scotland.
Early life and education
[edit]Sridhar was born and raised in Miami, Florida in an Indian family.[13] Her father was Kasi Sridhar.[13] After graduating from Ransom Everglades School at the age of 16, she enrolled in a six-year programme at the University of Miami that awards a bachelor's degree in two years, after which students are in the school of medicine.[14][15] In an interview with The Lancet, Sridhar explained that her passion for public health stems from her adolescence in Florida, where Sridhar's father died from cancer after years of illness, "Even as a teenager I could see that health was the definition of true wealth".[16]
Having received her bachelor's degree in biology at the age of 18, Sridhar became the youngest person in the U.S. to be awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford.[14][16][17] At Oxford, Sridhar completed an MPhil in medical anthropology in 2005, followed by a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree in anthropology in 2006.[18][19] Her thesis analysed the effectiveness of the World Bank's effort to combat malnutrition in India.[2][20][21] During her doctorate, she spent eight months conducting fieldwork in India into malnutrition and infectious diseases, which would inform her first book.[16]
Sridhar turned down a funded position at Harvard Law School[17] to join the University of Oxford Global Economic Governance Programme in 2006, where she was awarded both MPhil and DPhil degrees.[2][20] She was inspired by her grandmother, who raised her children in the 1960s before completing her DPhil and writing several books.[17]
Career and research
[edit]From 2008, Sridhar was a postdoctoral fellow at All Souls College, Oxford.[22] Her doctoral research led to her first book in 2008, The Battle Against Hunger, chosen by Foreign Affairs as a must-read book in aid policy.[16][23][24][25] The book investigated the World Bank funded nutrition programme based in India, which became a blueprint for aid programmes despite lack of evidence for its effectiveness.[25] Sridhar was concerned the programme did not address the social conditions that cause undernutrition in India.[25]
Sridhar is an Associate Fellow with the Chatham House Centre on Global Health.[26] In 2011, she was appointed to Wolfson College, Oxford as an associate professor in global health politics.[6][23] Sridhar serves on the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on the Health Industry. She started to research the rise of public–private partnerships in global health governance, and how, whilst they are crucial to combat infectious disease, their non-transparent accountability and effectiveness should be investigated.[27] International organisations are redirected by specific incentives, and the asymmetry of information sharing between member states and groups like the World Health Organization (WHO) or World Bank limits their impact. She worked with Chelsea Clinton and used principal agent theory to study the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the GAVI alliance.[27] She worked with Julio Frenk on the need for an independent and impartial World Health Organization.[28]
Between 2014 and 2016, Sridhar was on the board of trustees of Save the Children.[29][30] She regularly contributes to The Guardian, BBC World Service, CNN, Channel 4 News, and BBC Radio 4.[31][32] She is a member of Iyiola Solanke's Black Professors Forum.
Ebola and assessing responses to pandemics
[edit]Sridhar and colleagues investigated the international response to the West African Ebola virus epidemic, and what reforms were needed to heal a global system for outbreak response. She partnered with the Harvard Global Health Institute and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine to independently analyse the global response. They raised questions for the next director general of the WHO and recommended ten essential reforms to prevent and respond to the next pandemic.[33][34]
In 2014, Sridhar was appointed reader and senior lecturer in Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh. The following year she was promoted to full professor.[16] While at Edinburgh, Sridhar established the Global Health Governance Programme and is the Founding Director.[6][35] She works between the University of Edinburgh Medical School and Oxford's Blavatnik School of Government.[22] Sridhar compiled the first Wellcome Trust open research collection on the topic of global public health.[36] She is concerned by the rise of chronic disease, drug-resistant infection and funding for primary healthcare.[37]
While at the Blavatnik School of Government, Sridhar analysed the reach, effectiveness, and interdependency of supranational agencies like WHO, other UN health agencies, and organisations such as Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance and the World Bank. "The aim was to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of these organisations, and their comparative advantages and relevance to health ministries, especially in low-income and middle-income countries", she explained, in an interview with The Lancet.[16] This work informed her 2017 book, co-authored with Chelsea Clinton, Governing Global Health: Who Runs the World and Why?[10] In the book, Sridhar and Clinton argue that health governance is global and that global institutions are necessary to protect citizens and improve health outcomes on a broad scale. In addition, global health governance is changing, with increasing recognition of the need for intergovernmental cooperation to combat health problems.[38] The book examined the work of four key organisations, the WHO; the World Bank; The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; and GAVI. A key point made is the recent phenomenon of public-private partnerships in global health, a discussion of how these came about and some of the effects of such relationships. A review by Margaret K. Saunders in the journal Health Affairs noted that the book "provides an in-depth picture of the history of these global institutions and, more importantly, shows what that history means for the future of global health."[39]
2020 Coronavirus policy
[edit]![]() |
At a 2018 Hay Festival event, Sridhar warned of the risk of infectious disease from animal-to-human transmission travelling to the UK from China, saying "Our biggest health challenges are interconnected."[40]
On 28 March 2020, The Lancet published a letter signed by Sridhar and 35 other professors, criticising the UK's secretive approach to the COVID-19 pandemic, saying "we request that the government urgently and openly shares the scientific evidence, data, and models it is using to inform current decision making related to COVID-19 public health interventions ... With the UK increasingly becoming an outlier globally in terms of its minimal social distancing population-level interventions, transparency is key to retaining the understanding, cooperation and trust of the scientific and healthcare communities as well as the general public, ultimately leading to a reduction of morbidity and mortality."[41][42]
In April 2020, the Royal Society established its DELVE (Data Evaluation and Learning for Viral Epidemics) group, whose membership included Nobel laureates Venki Ramakrishnan and Daniel Kahneman as well as Sridhar.[43] In addition to advising the UK's SAGE team, this group has published data-driven research on coronavirus disease 2019, including a paper in The Lancet,[44] whose recommendations were summed up in The Guardian by Sridhar as 1) Test, trace, and isolate 2) Give public health guidance on avoiding the virus and 3) Control borders to prevent reimportation.[45] Sridhar similarly in April told an interviewer from The Times that "The virus is basically here to stay ... [Testing] seems like the way to preserve your economy as much as possible."[46]
Also in April, Sridhar was added to the Scottish Government's "time limited expert group," set up on 25 March 2020, to help develop and improve its plan for handling the COVID-19 pandemic in Scotland. The group is chaired by Edinburgh University professor Andrew Morris.[47][48][49][50] She is also (since June) a member of its subgroup on Education and Children's Issues.[51]
Sridhar praised the resulting Scottish government strategy to deal with the pandemic, a strategy whose goals are 1) "to reduce exposure" and 2) "to keep daily new cases as low as possible."[52] Sridhar also repeatedly contrasted the Scottish Government's response to the pandemic in Scotland to the strategy used by the British Government in managing the COVID-19 pandemic in England:[53]
Devi Sridhar, who runs the global health governance program at the University of Edinburgh, noted that the two countries took radically different approaches from the start: England's priority was to prevent its hospitals from being overrun, while Scotland's was to drive cases down to zero. If not for imported cases from the south, Dr. Sridhar said, Scotland could come close to that goal by the end of the summer.
— Mark Landler, The New York Times (10 July 2020)
During the summer of 2020 Scotland recorded the third highest death toll in Europe.[54] Despite this, many journalists praised the apparent success of Scotland's "zero covid" policy, by comparison to the British government response to the COVID-19 pandemic.[53][55][56] Sridhar co-authored an article that appeared in the BMJ in July, describing and praising "Scotland's slow and steady approach."[57]
In August, Sridhar wrote a New York Times op-ed titled "We Will Pay for Our Summer Vacations With Winter Lockdowns," which was a reflection on the role of tourism and travel in community transmission of the virus, urging "strict border measures" for European countries to contain the coronavirus.[58] Noting the different coronavirus rates in Scotland and in Northern Ireland versus in England and in Wales[59] she expressed concern that Scotland and Northern Ireland both "face a stream of incoming infections from England and Wales."[58] The "stream of incoming infections" comment has been criticised by Scottish unionists and others, with Willie Rennie, leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, accusing Sridhar of "feeding a divisive nationalist narrative without scientific evidence to back it up."[60][61] Nicola Sturgeon said that Sridhar's comments were "not political" and a "perfectly legitimate public health point".[62] The Scottish Government said Sridhar "was independent" and "did not speak on its behalf."[61]
In December, sequencing by the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium indicated that Scotland had almost eliminated the first strains of COVID-19 over the summer, and that travel and holidays abroad had re-seeded the newest strains and the second wave. One of the evolutionary genetics researchers, Thomas Christie from the University of Edinburgh, noted that 'the second wave of COVID-19 in Scotland was caused by new strains of the virus brought in from abroad and other parts of the UK'.[63][64][65][66]
Sridhar co-authored an open letter in The Lancet (15 October 2020) that has been referred to as the John Snow Memorandum.[67][68] The letter, which calls for science-based public health policy and rejects "naturally acquired herd immunity" as a dangerous fallacy, received 2000 signatures from the science and healthcare community within 24 hours.[68]
Awards and honours
[edit]At the University of Edinburgh Sridhar won the Chancellor's Rising Star award in 2017.[69] She won the Fletcher of Saltoun award of the Saltire Society for contributions to science in 2020.[70][71]
In 2021, The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) included Sridhar on its list of new fellows, the citation stating that "Professor Sridhar, whose research considers the effectiveness of public health interventions, has become a household name in the last 12 months as a public health expert during the coronavirus pandemic."[72]
Selected publications
[edit]Sridhar serves on the editorial board of the journal Public Health. She also writes a regular column in The Guardian,[73] and did a special collection on "The World Bank and financing global health" in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).[74]
Sridhar's books [1] include:
- Sridhar, D. (2008), The Battle Against Hunger: Choice, Circumstance and the World Bank (Oxford: Oxford University Press)[9]
- Sridhar, D. (2008), Anthropologists Inside Organisations: South Asian Case Studies (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications)[75]
- Sridhar, D. (2014), Healthy Ideas: Improving Global Health and Development in the 21st Century (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press)[76]
- Clinton, C. and Sridhar, D. (2017), Governing Global Health: Who Runs the World and Why? (Oxford: Oxford University Press)[10]
- Sridhar, D. (2022), Preventable: How a Pandemic Changed the World & How to Stop the Next One Hardcover (Penguin/Viking)[77]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c Devi Sridhar publications indexed by Google Scholar
- ^ a b c Sridhar, Devi (2006). The art of the bank : nutrition policy and practice in India. ox.ac.uk (DPhil thesis). University of Oxford. OCLC 165059652. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.439319.
- ^ "Professor David Gellner". University of Oxford. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
- ^ Companies House. "Devi SRIDHAR". Companies House. Retrieved 23 December 2020.
- ^ Sridhar, Devi Lalita (2006). The art of the Bank: nutrition policy and practice in India (Thesis). OCLC 165059652.
- ^ a b c "Devi Sridhar". ed.ac.uk. University of Edinburgh. Retrieved 19 October 2021.
- ^ Devi Sridhar publications from Europe PubMed Central
- ^ Tichenor, Marlee; Sridhar, Devi (2019). "Metric partnerships: global burden of disease estimates within the World Bank, the World Health Organisation and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation". Wellcome Open Research. 4: 35. doi:10.12688/wellcomeopenres.15011.1. ISSN 2398-502X. PMC 6406176. PMID 30863794.
- ^ a b Sridhar, Devi (2008). The battle against hunger. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199549962. OCLC 845822236.
- ^ a b c Sridhar, Devi; Clinton, Chelsea (2017). Governing Global Health: Who Runs the World and Why?. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0190253271. OCLC 1028527445.
- ^ Sridhar, Devi (2022). Preventable: How a Pandemic Changed the World & How to Stop the Next One. London: Penguin/Viking. ISBN 978-0241510537. OCLC 1308464538.
- ^ "Royal Society convenes data analytics group to tackle COVID-19 | Royal Society". royalsociety.org. Retrieved 15 October 2020.
- ^ a b Eaton, George (22 April 2022). "Devi Sridhar on the next pandemic and why she abandoned "zero Covid"". New Statesman. Retrieved 2 May 2022.
- ^ a b Diaz, Madeline (10 December 2002). "Student named youngest Rhodes Scholar". South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Retrieved 21 July 2020.
Devi Sridhar, a biology major at the University of Miami, has been named a Rhodes Scholar -- the youngest person ever to receive the honor in the United States...Since U.S. Rhodes Scholars have to complete a bachelor's degree before beginning their studies at Oxford, many are in their 20s. Sridhar, however, graduated from Ransom Everglades High School at 16 and is finishing her second year at the University of Miami, which is her senior year because she is enrolled in a six-year program that fast-tracks students to UM's School of Medicine.
- ^ Associated Press (11 December 2002). "Rhodes scholar from Miami is youngest ever". Deseret News. Retrieved 17 October 2020.
The daughter of two doctors, Sridhar entered the University of Miami at age 16 in a fast-track program to medical school...Sridhar won the scholarship a year after her father, noted lung cancer researcher Dr. Kasi Sridhar, died of leukemia and lymphoma at 49.
- ^ a b c d e f Lane, Richard (2020). "Devi Sridhar: illuminating global health governance". The Lancet. 396 (10256): 948. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32031-6. ISSN 0140-6736. PMC 7529393. PMID 33010828.
- ^ a b c Anon (2017). "Devi Sridhar: Governing global health". BMJ. 356: j1490. doi:10.1136/bmj.j1490. ISSN 0959-8138. PMID 28356303. S2CID 45389753.
- ^ "MPhil Dissertation Titles" (PDF). Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Oxford. Retrieved 19 January 2021.
- ^ "Professor David Gellner". www.anthro.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 19 January 2021.
- ^ a b "Alumni Spotlight". Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami. Archived from the original on 28 July 2019. Retrieved 28 July 2019.
- ^ Heikens, Geert Tom (2009). "Rethinking the role of the World Bank in the battle against hunger". The Lancet. 374 (9686): 281–282. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61350-7. ISSN 0140-6736. S2CID 53295622.
In The Battle Against Hunger, Devi Sridhar critically studies choice, circumstances, and the World Bank. In a subdued yet powerful analysis, she explores the tension between structure and agency and how these influence the outcome of TINP [Tamil Nadu Integrated Nutrition Project] at community level in India, and in the World Bank itself.
- ^ a b "Dr Devi Sridhar, Senior Research Associate | GEG". geg.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 28 July 2019.
- ^ a b "Devi Sridhar". politics.ox.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 15 June 2019. Retrieved 28 July 2019.
- ^ Gershman, John (21 March 2012). "What to Read on Foreign Aid". Foreign Affairs: America and the World. ISSN 0015-7120. Retrieved 28 July 2019.
- ^ a b c "Devi Sridhar's New Book: A Foreign Affairs Must-Read | GEG". geg.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 28 July 2019.
- ^ Gostin, Lawrence (August–September 2021). "Millennium Development Goals - Health: Caring About Health". The World Today.
- ^ a b "Governing Global Health with Chelsea Clinton and Devi Sridhar". bsg.ox.ac.uk. 11 May 2017. Retrieved 28 July 2019.
- ^ Sridhar, D.; Frenk, J.; Gostin, L.; Moon, S. (2014). "Global rules for global health: why we need an independent, impartial WHO" (PDF). BMJ. 348 (17): g3841. doi:10.1136/bmj.g3841. ISSN 1756-1833. PMID 24942299. S2CID 6580185.
- ^ de Almeida Favas, Lily (2015). Upholding our Values: Accountability and transparency report 2014 (PDF). Save the Children. p. 38. Retrieved 7 September 2020.
- ^ Now more than ever: Save the Children. Annual report 2016 (PDF). Save the Children. p. 33. Retrieved 7 September 2020.
- ^ "Devi Sridhar". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 October 2020.
- ^ "Hay Festival". hayfestival.com. Retrieved 28 July 2019.
- ^ Sridhar, Devi; Kickbusch, Ilona; Moon, Suerie; Dzau, Victor; Heymann, David; Jha, Ashish K.; Saavendra, Jorge; Stocking, Barbara; Woskie, Liana; Piot, Peter (2016). "Facing forward after Ebola: questions for the next director general of the World Health Organization" (PDF). BMJ. 353: i2666. doi:10.1136/bmj.i2666. ISSN 1756-1833. PMID 27193334. S2CID 206910533.
- ^ Piot, Peter; Woskie, Liana R.; Hawkins, Benjamin; Leigh, Jennifer A.; Tanner, Marcel; Saavedra, Jorge; Morrison, J. Stephen; Leung, Gabriel M.; Lee, Kelley (2015). "Will Ebola change the game? Ten essential reforms before the next pandemic. The report of the Harvard-LSHTM Independent Panel on the Global Response to Ebola". The Lancet. 386 (10009): 2204–2221. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(15)00946-0. ISSN 0140-6736. PMC 7137174. PMID 26615326.
- ^ "Team member overview old". globalhealthgovernance.org. Global Health Governance Programme. Retrieved 28 July 2019.
- ^ "About this collection - Wellcome Open Research". wellcomeopenresearch.org. Retrieved 28 July 2019.
- ^ "Professor Devi Sridhar, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom". euro.who.int. 24 May 2018. Retrieved 28 July 2019.
- ^ Saunders, Margaret K. (November 2017). "Book Reviews". Health Affairs. 36 (11): 2027–2028. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2017.0913.
- ^ Saunders, Margaret K. (November 2017). "The New Way Of Governing Global HealthGoverning Global Health: Who Runs The World And Why? By Chelsea Clinton and Devi Sridhar New York (NY): Oxford University Press, 2017 304 pp., $24.95". Health Affairs. 36 (11): 2027–2028. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2017.0913.
- ^ @hayfestival (16 March 2020). "- @devisridhar gave a prescient talk on global health alongside @ChelseaClinton at Hay Festival 2018. Worth another watch over on #HayPlayer now http://bit.ly/2ISTQOY" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
- ^ Alwan, Nisreen A; Bhopal, Raj; Burgess, Rochelle A; Colburn, Tim; Cuevas, Luis E; Smith, George Davey; Egger, Matthias; Eldridge, Sandra; Gallo, Valentina; Gilthorpe, Mark S; Greenhalgh, Trish; Griffiths, Christopher; Hunter, Paul R; Jaffar, Shabbar; Jepson, Ruth; Low, Nicola; Martineau, Adrian; McCoy, David; Orcutt, Miriam; Pankhania, Bharat; Pikhart, Hynek; Pollock, Allyson; Scally, Gabriel; Smith, James; Sridhar, Devi; Taylor, Stephanie; Tennant, Peter W G; Themistocleous, Yrene; Wilson, Anne (2020). "Evidence informing the UK's COVID-19 public health response must be transparent". The Lancet. 395 (10229): 1036–1037. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30667-X. ISSN 0140-6736. PMC 7270644. PMID 2197104.
we request that the [UK] government urgently and openly shares the scientific evidence, data, and models it is using to inform current decision making related to COVID-19 public health interventions...With the UK increasingly becoming an outlier globally in terms of its minimal social distancing population-level interventions, transparency is key to retaining the understanding, cooperation and trust of the scientific and healthcare communities as well as the general public, ultimately leading to a reduction of morbidity and mortality.
- ^ "The Secretive Group Guiding the U.K. on Coronavirus". New York Times. 23 April 2020. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
The government's influential Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies — known by its soothing acronym, SAGE — operates as a virtual black box. Its list of members is secret, its meetings are closed, its recommendations are private and the minutes of its deliberations are published much later, if at all. Yet officials invoke SAGE's name endlessly without ever explaining how it comes up with its advice — or even who these scientists are.
- ^ "Royal Society convenes data analytics group to tackle COVID-19". Royal Society. 17 April 2020. Retrieved 19 October 2020.
DELVE: Data Evaluation and Learning for Viral Epidemics is a multi-disciplinary group, convened by the Royal Society, to support a data-driven approach to learning from the different approaches countries are taking to managing the pandemic. This effort has been discussed with and welcomed by Government, who have arranged for it to provide input through SAGE, its scientific advisory group for emergencies.
- ^ Han, Emeline; Tan, Melisa Mei Jin; Turk, Eva; Sridhar, Devi; Leung, Gabriel M; Shibuya, Kenji; Asgari, Nima; Oh, Juhwan; García-Basteiro, Alberto L; Hanefeld, Johanna; Cook, Alex R; Hsu, Li Yang; Teo, Yik Ying; Heymann, David; Clark, Helen; McKee, Martin; Legido-Quigley, Helena (2020). "Lessons learnt from easing COVID-19 restrictions: an analysis of countries and regions in Asia Pacific and Europe". The Lancet. 396 (10261): 1525–1534. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32007-9. ISSN 0140-6736. PMC 7515628. PMID 32979936.
To facilitate cross-country learning, this Health Policy paper uses an adapted framework to examine the approaches taken by nine high-income countries and regions that have started to ease COVID-19 restrictions: five in the Asia Pacific region (ie, Hong Kong [Special Administrative Region], Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea) and four in Europe (ie, Germany, Norway, Spain, and the UK). This comparative analysis presents important lessons to be learnt from the experiences of these countries and regions.
- ^ Sridhar, Devi (10 October 2020). "Continual lockdowns are not the answer to bringing Covid under control". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 October 2020.
A recent Lancet peer-reviewed paper, which I co-authored, examined international lessons from easing lockdown and identified three key elements that are essential for bringing the virus under control. Most important is a robust system for testing, tracing and isolating...Strong public health guidance on avoiding the virus at any age is needed...And we need strict border measures to prevent the virus from being reimported
- ^ Linklater, Magnus. "Devi Sridhar: This coronavirus is here to stay. We must learn how to live with it". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 2 October 2020.
'The virus is basically here to stay,' she says. 'We still need to learn more about how you learn to live with it. Every government is trying to struggle with this question. [Testing] seems like the way to preserve your economy as much as possible, to keep social relations going so that small groups can continue to meet, and there is some kind of schooling.'
- ^ "New expert group to study spread of COVID-19 - gov.scot". gov.scot. 25 March 2020. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
A new expert group providing additional scientific analysis of the impact of COVID-19 in Scotland has been announced by the First Minister. As the number of cases increases, it is important that we have the fullest possible understanding of exactly how COVID-19 is spreading in Scotland.
- ^ "Scottish Government COVID-19 Advisory Group - gov.scot". gov.scot. Retrieved 9 April 2020.
Overview: Scottish Ministers, the Chief Medical Officer and Deputy Chief Medical Officer in Scotland, in consultation with the Chief Scientific Advisor for Scotland have identified the need for additional scientific analysis of the impact of COVID-19 in Scotland, based on regularly updated advice and modelling from the UK Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), and other emerging scientific evidence.
- ^ "Scottish Government COVID-19 Advisory Group: terms of reference - gov.scot". gov.scot. 4 July 2020. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
The Scottish Government COVID-19 Advisory Group will be a time limited expert group chaired by Professor Andrew Morris, Professor of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh and Director of Health Data Research UK. He will be supported by vice chair, Professor David Crossman, Dean of Medicine at the University of St Andrews and Chief Scientist (Health) at the Scottish Government.
- ^ Sridhar, Devi [@devisridhar] (24 July 2020). "For clarity: Been part of Royal Society DELVE which feeds into SAGE since April, part of Scottish govt advisory group since April & attended several Cabinet Office advisory meetings since May. Also feed into other gov'ts. I provide the same advice & input. Like a broken record" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 14 December 2020 – via Twitter.
- ^ "Coronavirus (COVID 19): Advisory Sub-Group on Education and Children's Issues - gov.scot". gov.scot. Retrieved 19 October 2020.
- ^ Newey, Sarah (18 May 2020). "Devi Sridhar: Wealth is the best shielding strategy for this virus - and from severe symptoms". telegraph.co.uk. The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
I think it's been clear that containment is the best strategy for your economy, for public health, and for society. Driving numbers low enough that you can get economic and social activity going seems to be the optimal strategy in my view. And the countries that have done that are starting to open up schools and resume activity.
- ^ a b Landler, Mark (10 July 2020). "In Tackling Coronavirus, Scotland Asserts Its Separateness From England". New York Times. Retrieved 31 August 2020.
For now, Scotland's approach has made it a bright spot in coronavirus-ravaged Britain. New cases have dwindled to a handful a day, and deaths to a trickle. If Scotland maintains this progress — a big if, given its open border — it could stamp out the epidemic by the fall, public health experts say. Such a goal seems fanciful in England, which is still reporting hundreds of new cases and dozens of deaths every day.
- ^ "Coronavirus: Scotland has third highest rate of excess deaths in Europe after England and Spain". 30 July 2020.
- ^ Varghese, Sanjana (3 August 2020). "Scotland is aiming to eliminate coronavirus. Why isn't England?". Wired UK. Retrieved 26 October 2020.
In April, the Scottish government diverged from the UK government's approach and put out a statement saying that there would be 'no acceptable number of Covid-19 cases.'...Currently, there are an estimated 10 to 30 daily infections in Scotland, compared to 2,800 in England.
- ^ Marshall, Michael (26 October 2020). "Scotland could eliminate the coronavirus – if it weren't for England". New Scientist. Retrieved 26 October 2020.
Scotland is only weeks away from suppressing the coronavirus altogether, a situation that highlights the different approaches taken by the nation and England in recent months. While Scotland initially made many of the same mistakes as England, since late March, its government has acted on its own scientific advice.
- ^ Sridhar, Devi; Adriel, Chen (2020). "Why Scotland's slow and steady approach to covid-19 is working". BMJ. 370: m2669. doi:10.1136/bmj.m2669. PMID 32631899. S2CID 220347771.
As Scotland has a land border with England and is part of a global world, this does not mean elimination with no cases ever. It does, however, mean working towards ending community transmission and local cases, and moving towards a future where the main risk of covid-19 is from imported cases
- ^ a b Sridhar, Devi (14 August 2020). "We Will Pay for Our Summer Vacations With Winter Lockdowns". New York Times. Retrieved 31 August 2020.
The only way to stop constant increases in the coronavirus is to eliminate community transmission and to use robust test, trace and isolate policies to continue catching imported cases and clusters as they emerge...Stopping community transmission requires mandatory, enforced quarantine for incoming travelers and testing before release. Europe could do the same and cooperate across countries toward this goal so that intra-European travel and tourism can continue when a safe bubble can be built.
- ^ "United Kingdom Covid Map and Case Count". The New York Times. 16 April 2020. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 15 October 2020.
- ^ Wade, Mike. "Coronavirus in Scotland: Cross-border cases 'to rise'". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 19 October 2020.
Willie Rennie, the Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, said it was 'unhelpful' for Professor Sridhar to be 'feeding a divisive nationalist narrative without scientific evidence to back it up'.
- ^ a b "Infections 'streaming in from England and Wales'". The Herald. 17 August 2020. Retrieved 31 August 2020.
Tory MSP Donald Cameron said Ms Sridhar was 'stoking up the belief that infections from England are hampering Scotland's fight' against Covid. The Scottish Government said Ms Sridhar was independent and did not speak on its behalf.
(subscription required) - ^ Matchett, Conor (18 August 2020). "Nicola Sturgeon says Scottish Government adviser's 'stream of infection' from England and Wales comment 'not political'". The Scotsman. Retrieved 26 October 2020.
Ms Sturgeon said: 'I know the point Devi is making and I think it is a perfectly legitimate public health point. This is not about different countries or nationalities or different groups of people, this is about trying to keep an infectious virus under control and when there are outbreaks in particular parts of the UK that may mean limiting travel or advising against travel from those areas to other parts of the UK
- ^ Maishman, Elsa (9 January 2021). "Scientist calls for Scotland-England border shut down as new figures show half of second wave covid strain came from south". The Scotsman. Retrieved 10 January 2021.
- ^ Eaton, George (8 January 2021). "Devi Sridhar: The UK needs a zero-Covid strategy to prevent endless lockdowns". New Statesman. Retrieved 10 January 2021.
- ^ Epidemic waves of COVID-19 in Scotland: a genomic perspective on the impact of the introduction and relaxation of lockdown on SARS-CoV-2 (PDF) (Report). 2020. Retrieved 10 January 2021.
- ^ Grant, Alastair (9 December 2020). "Scotland 'close to eliminating coronavirus before travel brought new strains'". The Herald. Retrieved 10 January 2021.
- ^ Alwan, Nisreen A; Burgess, Rochelle Ann; Ashworth, Simon; Beale, Rupert; Bhadelia, Nahid; Bogaert, Debby; Dowd, Jennifer; Eckerle, Isabella; Goldman, Lynn R; Greenhalgh, Trisha; Gurdasani, Deepti; Hamdy, Adam; Hanage, William P; Hodcroft, Emma B; Hyde, Zoë; Kellam, Paul; Kelly-Irving, Michelle; Krammer, Florian; Lipsitch, Marc; McNally, Alan; McKee, Martin; Nouri, Ali; Pimenta, Dominic; Priesemann, Viola; Rutter, Harry; Silver, Joshua; Sridhar, Devi; Swanton, Charles; Walensky, Rochelle P; Yamey, Gavin; Ziauddeen, Hisham (2020). "Scientific consensus on the COVID-19 pandemic: we need to act now". The Lancet. 396 (10260): e71–e72. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32153-X. ISSN 0140-6736. PMC 7557300. PMID 33069277.
- ^ a b "The John Snow Memorandum". johnsnowmemo.com.
- ^ "Chancellor's Award to Professor Devi Sridhar". The University of Edinburgh. 6 December 2017. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
- ^ "Fletcher of Saltoun Awards". saltiresociety.org.uk. 26 October 2020. Archived from the original on 29 October 2020. Retrieved 28 October 2020.
On Monday 26 October, The Saltire Society announced the second of six recipients of the 2020 Fletcher of Saltoun Awards. Professor Devi Sridhar was awarded this prestigious prize for her outstanding Contribution to Science, work which has rarely been so pivotal as through the COVID-19 crisis.
- ^ "Saltire Society Fletcher of Saltoun Award". Saltire Society. Archived from the original on 7 November 2020. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
Established in 1988, the Fletcher of Saltoun Awards form part of the Saltire Society's annual awards programme and seeks to recognise outstanding contributions to Scottish society across different walks of life...In 2014 the awards expanded to include awards for contribution to Science, Arts and Humanities and Public Life.
- ^ "The RSE announces 2021 Fellows". The Royal Society of Edinburgh. 30 March 2021. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
The list includes many leading academics such as Professor Devi Sridhar, Chair of Global Public Health and Director of Global Health Governance Programme at Edinburgh University. Professor Sridhar, whose research considers the effectiveness of public health interventions, has become a household name in the last 12 months as a public health expert during the coronavirus pandemic.
- ^ "Devi Sridhar". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 October 2020.
- ^ "The World Bank and financing global health | The BMJ". www.bmj.com. Retrieved 28 October 2020.
- ^ Sridhar, Devi (2008). Anthropologists Inside Organisations. Sage Publishing. ISBN 978-8178298863. OCLC 611878385.
- ^ Sridhar, Devi; Rudan, Igor (2014). Healthy Ideas: Improving Global Health and Development in the 21st Century. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0993363818. OCLC 1113252070.
- ^ "Book review: Preventable, by Devi Sridhar". www.scotsman.com. Retrieved 1 May 2022.