Covid inquiry chair warns another pandemic is ‘not if but when’

The UK Government and the civil service “failed” the public due to “significant flaws” in preparing for the Covid-19 pandemic, a public inquiry has found.

In its first report into preparedness for a pandemic, the UK Covid-19 Inquiry said there was a “damaging absence of focus” on the measures and infrastructure that would be needed to deal with a fast-spreading disease, even though a coronavirus outbreak at pandemic scale “was foreseeable”.

A major flaw, according to the inquiry, was the lack of “a system that could be scaled up to test, trace and isolate” people.

The Covid inquiry, which is being chaired by Baroness Heather Hallett, published its 217-page report on Thursday.

In her foreword, Lady Hallett said: “It is not a question of ‘if’ another pandemic will strike but ‘when’.

“The evidence is overwhelmingly to the effect that another pandemic – potentially one that is even more transmissible and lethal – is likely to occur in the near to medium future.

Continue reading at Manchester Evening News:

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