Epidemiologist and Mosman resident Professor Mary-Louise McLaws dies at age 70.

By ANNA USHER

Mary-Louise McLaws, Mosman resident and epidemiologist who helped guide Australians through the Covid-19 pandemic, has died aged 70 due to a long-term sickness.

The UNSW professor died in her sleep on Saturday night at Wolper Hospital in Woollahra, her family confirmed.

In a statement to the Sydney Morning Herald, her husband Richard Flook said she had been “well cared for” by the nurses and doctors at the hospital, and “had enjoyed the visits of her many friends who have been so supportive of her and our family.”

“We will be planning her funeral service at Emmanuel Synagogue in the next few days,” he said.

A member of the World Health Organisation and an honorary advisory to the Clinical Excellence Commission, Professor McClaws became a household name during the pandemic as she advised Australian’s how to protect themselves from infection.

McLaws was a professor at the University of NSW of Public Health and Community Medicine.

She served as World Health Organisation (WHO) adviser to China and helped with infection-control research initiatives around the world.

She was also a member of the WHO Health Emergencies Program Experts Advisory Panel for Infection Prevention and Control Preparedness, Readiness and Response to COVID-19.

In January 2022, McLaws told ABC Radio Melbourne that she had been diagnosed with brain cancer, which she believed was terminal.

“I assume that I will die, I don’t know when, and I’m just enjoying life and friends, and I think that’s what you have to do,” she said at the time.

During Covid, Professor McLaws emphasised the need for clear lockdown rules and tough restrictions, especially when it came to “super-spreader” events.

One of her main criticisms was that the NSW government had not acted quickly enough to control the infectious spread.

In 2020, she called for the annual New Year’s Eve celebrations in Sydney to be banned and said people should not leave their own homes on Christmas Day.

“I wrote to the mayor (of the City of Sydney) on September 11, that it was my opinion that it was safer to shut it down, because if there was any infection, it would accelerate,” she told News Corp Australia at the time.

The fireworks went ahead, with the event scaled back to consist only of a shortened, seven-minute display.

When the Delta variant reached our shores in June 2021, Professor McLaws warned that the lessons learned in battling Covid during the previous 18 months “no longer apply”.

She also called on authorities to vaccinate Sydney’s 20 to 39-year-olds as a matter of urgency, saying that the previous belief that young people were less at risk was no longer the case.

Professor McLaws was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2022 and is survived by her husband, Richard, and children Zia and Zachary.

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