Covid in Scotland: Virus elimination would 'come at cost'
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An elimination strategy could result in regular "stringent" lockdowns when cases emerge
Scotland could "strive" to eliminate Covid-19 - but at the cost of isolation, the national clinical director has said.
Prof Jason Leitch warned an elimination strategy would prevent international travel to Scotland "for some time".
He also said that elimination was not the same as "global eradication" of Covid-19, which would take many years.
A public panel has urged the Scottish government to pursue a Covid elimination strategy.
The body of 19 people was set up by Holyrood's Covid-19 Committee to provide the public's view on the government's approach to coronavirus restrictions and strategy.
It has called for a plan that would try to gradually reduce the number of cases to zero.
Prof Leitch told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme that it was "possible to strive" for elimination.
"You can see countries striving very hard for elimination and getting there," he said.
"You might compare yourself perhaps with Norway... [It has] land borders in Europe, northern Europe, and has strived for elimination.
"You cannot travel to Norway unless you are exempt for oil and gas reasons or you have another reason for an emergency or something and they have pretty low numbers."
Prof Leitch said any "domestic normality" achieved by elimination would come at the cost of international travel, but told BBC Scotland it could be possible to set up "travel corridors" between countries that had eliminated the virus.
He added: "Elimination is not eradicating the virus. In order to be completely eradicated, we need a smallpox-style, many-years project - and the virus would probably have to help us, but we can strive for elimination."
"Travel corridors" could be set up between countries who have successfully "eliminated" Covid-19
Public health expert Dr Christine Tait-Burkard, from the University of Edinburgh, said an elimination strategy was possible in countries such as Australia and New Zealand because international travel could be more easily controlled.
But she said it would be hard to achieve similar results in the UK.
"It is a very difficult strategy to pursue and in my opinion it's near impossible, just because we live in a very multi-cultural society and have very close links to the continent.
"That's a bit different from Australia and New Zealand, where these strategies are indeed quite feasible because the only ports are by air or by boat.
"With the UK those links are very close and people can travel very easily."
Living with the virus
Dr Tait Burkard said that "very stringent lockdowns", as seen recently in Melbourne and Auckland, were also a key part of any elimination strategy.
She told Good Morning Scotland that vaccination offered another route out of lockdown.
"We are on a good way to having vaccinated," she said.
"So, potentially, in my opinion, we just have to start to live with the virus, carefully weighing out all the negatives.
"But the reality of the virus being so widespread across the globe means that this virus is here to stay."
