Tearful Sturgeon said the number of lives lost during the pandemic ...

A teary Sturgeon said she feels the number of lives lost during the pandemic was “far too high”.

Choking back tears, Sturgeon said: “I feel to my core that the number of lives lost to this pandemic were far too high. We were never going to be able to get through a pandemic with no loss of life.

“I think it was far too high.

“I think the other impacts were far too high, and, you know, every death is a tragedy that I regret, and that people in this room and outside across the country are living with the grief and trauma of, so we didn’t do as well as I wish we were able to.”

Another revealing day of the Covid inquiry has concluded. Here is a roundup of the day’s biggest moments:

• An emotional Sturgeon, who was on the edge of tears at various points of the day, said she felt the number of lives lost during the pandemic was “far too high”. Soon after, she said she was “sorry to each and every bereaved person, and each and every person who suffered in other ways. I did my best, my government did our best and people will judge that.”

• Earlier in the day, Sturgeon made a similar statement, saying that “for as long as I live I will carry the impact of [the] decisions” made during the pandemic.

• Sturgeon admitted to deleting WhatsApp messages, saying she did so due to “security concerns”. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar later claimed that Sturgeon “lied” to a journalist when she told them that she had preserved WhatsApp messages which the inquiry would want to see.

• Sturgeon said one of her main regrets about the pandemic is not locking down earlier in 2020. She said: “Of the many regrets I have, probably chief of those is that we didn’t lock down a week, two weeks, earlier than we did.”

• Throughout the day, she denied accusations of politicising the pandemic to bolster support for Scottish independence. Lead counsel Jamie Dawson KC said such a move would be a “considerable betrayal of the Scottish people”, to which Sturgeon agreed it would.

• Evidence that the Scottish government was concerned that Spain would block an independent Scotland from joining the EU over travel restrictions was presented to the inquiry. An email – copied to Sturgeon and a number of senior government figures – sent on 19 July from the email address of then deputy first minister John Swinney, but signed off by someone named Scott, said: “It won’t matter how much ministers might justify it on health grounds, the Spanish government will conclude it is entirely political; they won’t forget; there is a real possibility they will never approve EU membership for an independent Scotland as a result.”

• Sturgeon said Boris Johnson was the “wrong prime minister” for the Covid crisis. She replied “yes” when asked if Boris Johnson was “the wrong prime minister” for the crisis.

Today’s hearing has come to an end. Lady Hallett, who chairs the inquiry, said it is unlikely Sturgeon will be called back again and noted that some members of the public gallery were distressed.

In the final question for today, Sturgeon is asked whether the criminal trial for Alex Salmond on allegations of sexual assault, which went ahead in March 2020 and found Salmond not guilty on all counts, had any impact on the timing of when lockdown was imposed in Scotland.

“No,” she replied.

Sturgeon has admitted that there were “flaws and deficiencies” in care home guidance in early in the pandemic.

She said the situation in care homes was “one of the most important” parts of the pandemic response to scrutinise.

In the early months of the pandemic, more than 100 people were discharged from hospital to care homes after having previously tested positive for the virus and before returning a negative test.

She said: “I do not think we got everything right around care homes and I deeply regret that.

“There were undoubtedly flaws and deficiencies in that guidance, but the advice at the time was isolation – keeping people as separate as possible – was the best way to protect people in care homes, and clearly that didn’t have the effect that we wanted it to have.”

In his final question to Sturgeon, Jamie Dawson KC asked if “the story of Covid in Scotland is the story of the hubris of Nicola Sturgeon”?

A visibly emotional Sturgeon said: “No. I do not believe that to be the case.

“I am in the fortunate position of not having lost anyone to Covid.

“I wish with every fibre of my being that the decisions my government had been able to take could have reduced the number of people in Scotland who did lose someone to Covid.

“I am deeply sorry to each and every bereaved person, and each and every person who suffered in other ways.

“I did my best, my government did our best and people will judge that, but I know that every day I tried my best and those working with me tried their best to steer this country through the Covid pandemic in the best way we could.”

A teary Sturgeon said she feels the number of lives lost during the pandemic was “far too high”.

Choking back tears, Sturgeon said: “I feel to my core that the number of lives lost to this pandemic were far too high. We were never going to be able to get through a pandemic with no loss of life.

“I think it was far too high.

“I think the other impacts were far too high, and, you know, every death is a tragedy that I regret, and that people in this room and outside across the country are living with the grief and trauma of, so we didn’t do as well as I wish we were able to.”

Sturgeon said that “for as long as I live I will carry the impact of these decisions” made during the pandemic.

An emotional Sturgeon told the Covid-19 Inquiry: “I remember sitting one night in probably February 2020 in Bute House with a set of reasonable worst-case scenario figures in front of me, and a figure for the potential number of deaths that might unfold, which thankfully didn’t unfold at that level, my instinct became something completely different.

“In that moment, my only instinct and the instinct I brought to the management of the pandemic was: how do I lead a government that makes the best possible decisions in horrific circumstances to try to minimise the harm that this virus is going to do?

“People will make their own judgments about me, about my government, about my decisions, but for as long as I live, I will carry the impact of these decisions, I will carry regret at the decisions and judgments I got wrong, but I will always know in my heart and in my soul that my instincts and my motivation was nothing other than trying to do the best in the face of this pandemic.”

Sturgeon has rejected accusations that the pandemic response was run on her “instincts”.

In an exchange over a fanzone in Glasgow for the 2020 European Championships, which took place in 2021, Sturgeon was shown an email between then health secretary Humza Yousaf and national clinical director Prof Jason Leitch where they claimed her “instinct” was to cancel the event.

Responding to the accusation from lead counsel to the inquiry Jamie Dawson KC, the former first minister said that could have been the case had the fanzone been cancelled.

“I had an instinct, I tested it again with the experts, I asked for advice, I considered that advice and, on the basis of that advice, decided the opposite of what my instinct had started out telling me,” she said.

Sturgeon said that Covid will “arguably” never go away after insisting she did not believe the pandemic would “soon be over” after the introduction of the vaccine.

Jamie Dawson KC asked Sturgeon: “Was it your view and that of the Scottish government that the pandemic would soon be over as a result of the arrival of the vaccine?”

Sturgeon said: “No. We’re no longer in a pandemic but people are dying from Covid every week as we speak.

“Covid has not gone away. Arguably, Covid will never go away.”

She said she had been called the “voice of doom” around Covid.

Sturgeon fought back tears for second time today as she said she takes it “very personally” when her motives behind actions during the pandemic are questioned.

She said: “I take it very, very personally when people question the very motives because I know the motives were absolutely in good faith and for the best reasons.”

Jamie Dawson KC put it to Sturgeon she wanted to be “the person who had driven Covid out of Scotland”, which she rejected.

The former first minister said: “I hoped that the decisions my government would take would keep Covid at the lowest possible level, so that it took the lives of fewer people, minimised the disruption to people’s livelihoods and the education of children.

“I accept that there will be genuine and serious scrutiny of the content of decisions that were taken, and some of those decisions I wish I had taken, my government, had taken differently, some – I think – were right.

“My motives in this were only ever about trying to do the right thing to minimise the overall harm that the virus was doing.

“The toll it took, in Scotland, as in other parts of the UK, was far too high, so I didn’t do that as successfully as I wish I was able to, but perhaps in some ways the measures we took had some impact.”

Sturgeon was asked whether public health professor Devi Sridhar “frequently” ran what she intended to say in the press and in press interviews by her to ensure their positions were aligned.

Sturgeon denied this, saying: “The volume of Prof Sridhar’s output would suggest that if she ever did that, it was on a very small number of occasions.”

Sturgeon said the Scottish government had a “maximum suppression” strategy, telling the inquiry the aim was to suppress the virus to the “lowest possible level”.

She said ministers used phraseology like “zero Covid” and elimination colloquially, but she said “emphatically” not eradication, which she said was a “very different concept”.

She added: “At no point was my belief that we would get Covid to a level where it was eliminated and went away.”