First Exercise Cygnus 2016 showed how inadequate the NHS was prepared for a pandemic, Binned because of costs.
Exercise Cygnus uncovered: the pandemic warnings buried ...
www.telegraph.co.uk › news › 2020/03/28 › exercise-c...
Now,
UK ministers were warned last year of risks of coronavirus pandemic and the Tories took no notice. And the government and the medical and scientific people say 'we were prepared'.
"Ministers were warned last year the UK must have a robust plan to deal with a pandemic virus and its potentially catastrophic social and economic consequences in a confidential Cabinet Office briefing leaked to the Guardian.
The detailed document warned that even a mild pandemic could cost tens of thousands of lives, and set out the must-have “capability requirements” to mitigate the risks to the country, as well as the potential damage of not doing so.
It comes as the UK’s hospital death toll from coronavirus heads towards 20,000. Less than a month ago, the medical director at NHS England, Prof Stephen Powis, said the country would “have done very well” to stay below this grim milestone.
Marked “official, sensitive”, the 2019 National Security Risk Assessment (NSRA) was signed off by Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, as well as a senior national security adviser to the prime minister whom the Guardian has been asked not to name.
"The NSRA sets out a series of potential reasonable worst case scenarios (RWCS) for the spread of a flu-like viral pandemic, which emergency planning experts regard as the benchmark for its preparedness in the current crisis.
It also included predictions that offer insights into how planners believe a crisis like this current emergency might evolve.
The document said:
• A pandemic would play out in up to “three waves”, with each wave expected to last 15 weeks … “with the peak weeks occurring at weeks 6 and 7 in each wave”.
• 50% of the population would be infected and experience symptoms of pandemic influenza during the one or more waves. The actual number of people infected would be higher than this, as there would be a number of asymptomatic cases.
• A pandemic of moderate virulence could lead to 65,600 deaths.
• The potential cost to the UK could be £2.35tn.
• Even after the end of the pandemic, it is likely that it would take months or even years for health and social care services to recover.
• There would be significant public outrage over any perceived poor handling of the government’s preparations and response to the emergency".
RIP
