UK didn’t have potential to scale up rapidly throughout COVID pandemic, Sir Chris Whitty says

The UK did “not have the ability to scale up” rapidly to take care of the coronavirus pandemic in areas equivalent to testing, England’s chief medical officer has mentioned.

Professor Sir Chris Whitty informed the UK COVID-19 Inquiry that the “hazards and threats” from a pandemic are “going to be completely different every time” and what’s wanted are “multiple capabilities that can be flexed to almost any emergency…” quite than having a plan for one explicit state of affairs.

Module 1 of the inquiry, which is ready to run till mid-July, is trying on the UK’s preparedness for pandemics within the time earlier than COVID struck.

On the difficulty of scaling up, Sir Chris mentioned one situation “we really absolutely should have taken much more seriously, was the capability to scale up”.

He added: “In every pandemic, every epidemic, the ability to diagnose, for example, is essential and we had a very good capacity to do a very small amount of diagnoses really quickly, and we did not have the ability to scale up, and I could repeat that across multiple other domains.”

Vaccine taskforce was ‘likely to fail’ – COVID inquiry latest

Sir Chris additionally informed the inquiry that non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) used through the pandemic – social measures equivalent to quarantine, particular person isolation, closing faculties – weren’t new and a few went again to the Middle Ages.

“However, the very big new idea was the idea of a lockdown,” he mentioned. “I’m talking here very, very specifically about the state saying people have to go home and stay at home, except under very limited circumstances – a very radical thing to do.”

Under questioning from Hugo Keith KC, lead counsel to the inquiry, Sir Chris additionally mentioned: “I actually agree that we didn’t give ample thought to what we might do to cease, in its tracks, a pandemic on the dimensions of COVID, or certainly some other pathogen that might realistically go there.

“I do think, on the other hand, it is sensible to have a plan for ‘if everything fails, what are we going to do?’

“We do nonetheless want to have the ability to say, ‘let’s go to the prime quality, truly, we might find yourself with 750,000 individuals dying, the place are we going to bury our bodies?’

“These are important, they may seem morbid, but they are practically important… in this sense, I do think a plan is important.”

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Sir Chris additionally recalled the “extremely concerning” degree of threats to specialists through the COVID pandemic.

However, he added: “One we should be very firm in saying that society very much appreciated the work of these people.”

A man was jailed for eight weeks after he admitted desiring to trigger Professor Sir Chris Whitty misery when he approached him in June 2021.

Jonathan Chew, 24, was one in all two males who filmed themselves with Professor Whitty as he walked by way of St James’s Park in Westminster on 27 June 2021.

Former well being secretary Matt Hancock, ex-Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon and the chief govt of the UK Health Security Agency, Dame Jenny Harries, will give proof to the inquiry subsequent week.