Lax infection controls around hospitals were like "pulling down a portcullis to stop a swarm of bees", a witness has told the UK Covid inquiry.

Jane Morrison, whose wife Jacky Morrison-Hart died aged 49 in October 2020 after contracting Covid while in hospital with jaundice, said nothing was done to stop patients meeting up with visitors in hospital grounds and potentially bringing the virus back in.

Mrs Morrison, who was representing the Scottish Covid Bereaved at the second day of the inquiry in Edinburgh, said that 25% of the group's members had lost loved ones after they became infected with Covid in hospital.

The Herald: Jane Morrison with her wife Jacky, who died from hospital-acquired Covid in October 2020Jane Morrison with her wife Jacky, who died from hospital-acquired Covid in October 2020 (Image: PA)

She added that this figure has remained "consistent" throughout the pandemic even as the size of the group has grown.

Mrs Morrison said: "One of the biggest gaps when Covid started, certainly in the hospital Jacky was in...every time I'd visit the hospital there would be patients outside, meeting friends and family in the car parks - no masks, no social distancing, in groups of up to half a dozen.

"I saw it with my own eyes, they'd walk back into the hospital and they wouldn't even use the hand gel.

"It makes a mockery of much of the infection controls. It's like pulling down a portcullis to stop a swarm of bees."

Asked by counsel to the inquiry Jamie Dawson KC over what period of time Scottish Covid Bereaved members had concerns about the enforcement of infections controls in hospital, Mrs Morrison said these had continued "throughout the duration of the whole pandemic".

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Jacky Morrison-Hart, who was treated at Ninewells hospital in Dundee, had been in hospital for two weeks when she tested positive for Covid on the 15th day of her admission.

Her stay in hospital had been prolonged by infection control measures which required equipment such as scanners to be fully disinfected after each use, limiting the number of patients who could be seen.

Mrs Morrison said this meant her wife typically waited three days between tests. She died just five days after developing Covid.

Mrs Morrison said: "It destroys the lining of the blood vessels and in those five days it had clogged up her lungs, her kidneys had failed, her pancreas had failed, and her liver had failed, all because of Covid.

"They tried to do dialysis but they couldn't because her blood was so sticky. It actually broke the machine."

Mrs Morrison told the inquiry that she had also heard cases of people "pleading with the hospital" not to discharge their relatives into care homes, adding that 9% of Scottish Covid Bereaved members had lost loved ones to the disease in residential or nursing homes.

She said that the policy of transferring hundreds of elderly "bed blockers" from hospitals into care homes without testing during March and April of 2020 appeared to have been influenced by an erroneous belief among policymakers at the time that Covid tests could not detect asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic cases, as well as by guidance related to pandemic flu planning.

"With a flu pandemic, the elderly are least at risk because of years of vaccines and years of exposure," said Mrs Morrison.

"On Feb 25 [2020], Public Health England - who were the lead public health people for the joint approach - they issued guidance saying it was 'very unlikely' that care homes would get any infection in them.

"They said that a couple of times, and that [guidance] existed until March 13. So we had that and, as we now know, there was also a lack of testing capacity."

Concluding her evidence, Mrs Morrison issued a plea to politicians and key decisionmakers to be "completely candid" in their evidence.

Witnesses including former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon are expected to appear before the inquiry next week.

"We need the truth, and we need people to be honest," said Mrs Morrison.

The inquiry also heard from Roz Foyer, general secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress, who called for Covid to be treated as an "industrial disease" like asbestos-related lung cancer.

Key workers during the pandemic were mostly female, disproportionately Black or from ethnic minorities, and many were on "poverty pay", said Ms Foyer.

Years of austerity prior to the pandemic had "fundamentally altered our public services with lethal consequences", she added.

"The sad reality is that too many of these workers lost their lives protecting us, but I don't think we protected them enough," said Ms Foyer.

The Herald: Roz Foyer said austerity cuts in the years leading up to the pandemic had 'lethal consequences'Roz Foyer said austerity cuts in the years leading up to the pandemic had 'lethal consequences' (Image: UK Covid Inquiry/YouTube)

She added that low levels of statutory sick pay in the UK - a reserved issue - were particularly problematic during the pandemic when many workers with Covid or suspected exposure to the virus could not afford to stay home and self-isolate.

She said: "You had a perfect storm in the care sector where you had people workers on very low pay who were, crucially, in touch with some of the most vulnerable people when it came to the virus...these workers in many cases did not have access to appropriate levels of sick pay."

Ms Foyer praised a fund set up by the Scottish Government in June of 2020 which enabled social care workers, including agency staff, to access sick pay that covered their wages, allowing them to isolate.

However, she added that this "really needed to be happening across all areas of the workforce".