Former Scottish health secretary Jeane Freeman has said she “absolutely” understands the anger of families who lost loved ones to Covid-19. Reflecting on the government’s response, she admitted some decisions may be “worth reconsidering” in hindsight. ormer Scottish health secretary Jeane Freeman has admitted some of the government’s Covid decisions may be “worth reconsidering” in hindsight. Speaking on Sunday, the fifth anniversary of the first lockdown announcement, Freeman reflected on the virus that claimed more than 16,000 lives in Scotland and the impact of government decisions. At the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, she said she made the best choices possible with the information available at the time but acknowledged that some may have been wrong. “I think it’s something worth reconsidering,” she told the BBC’s Sunday Show. “I don’t know, because I’m not sitting now with all the information that I had then – in five years, I don’t remember it all. “So I can’t say for sure that was the wrong decision.” She added: “Many of them are probably worth a reconsideration and there’s certainly things to be done to prepare us to be in a better starting place than we were for the next pandemic that will come along.” Freeman said she “absolutely” understands the anger of families who lost loved ones to Covid-19. Asked about their frustrations, she said: “Oh, I absolutely can. “I absolutely can understand their anger, of course I can. “That doesn’t diminish their anger, nor, I’d say, does it diminish what I’m saying to you. “I made what I believed were the best decisions with the information I had at the time and as I could improve the circumstances, I absolutely did.” She added: “But there is no getting away from the fact that people died, people were harmed and there is a long-term impact.” Freeman acknowledged the wider toll of the pandemic, from long Covid and bereavement to the isolation of lockdown. Young people, she said, missed out on key milestones. She also suggested that some decisions—such as school closures, which kept most pupils at home during the early stages of the pandemic—may have been wrong and should be reviewed. Freeman, who left Holyrood in 2021, reflected on her own experience of the crisis. “I described it as two years of running anxiety… you’re always anxious. “There’s anxiety about everything from whether you’re making the right decisions to whether what you’ve said needs to be done is getting done. “Is it getting done properly? What’s going wrong that you don’t yet know about? “To just anxiety that everybody had about your own relatives, loved ones, how they’re all doing, hoping they don’t get ill, hoping everything will be okay for them.” Asked if she felt a sense of pride, she instead said she was “pleased with my own resilience.” Scottish Tory health spokesman Dr Sandesh Gulhane accused Freeman of a “shameful” attempt to defend the government’s record, saying: “The SNP were completely unprepared for Covid and were too busy playing politics against Westminster when they should have been focused on saving lives.” Freeman also addressed the pressures facing Scotland’s NHS today, suggesting a “national booking system” for elective care could help ease the burden. But Scottish Labour’s deputy leader Jackie Baillie said: “Under the dysfunctional SNP, operating theatres remain underused while A&E patients wait in corridors, and nearly one in six Scots are on an NHS waiting list. “Scottish Labour will bring a patient-first approach to our NHS where the money follows the patient rather than propping up bureaucracy and all available operating capacity is used.”