Ex-Covid chief Sir John Bell warns ‘another pandemic will definitely happen’ – and says coronavirus could have been ‘much worse’

Britons need to ‘get used to’ the fact that there will ‘certainly be a new pandemic’, according to one of Britain’s leading experts.

Sir John Bell, who was Boris Johnson’s testing tsar during Covid, said it was ‘unthinkable’ that the country would not experience another ‘major event’.

Addressing MPs on the health and social care committee, he argued there was a ’20 to 30 per cent chance’ of another pandemic happening within 20 years.

Sir John, professor of medicine at the University of Oxford, also admitted that Covid itself could have been ‘much worse’.

He told the inquiry that if the Omicron variant, which only emerged in November 2021, had been the first strain, “the whole system would have collapsed.”

Sir John, professor of medicine at the University of Oxford, also admitted that Covid itself could have been ‘much worse’. He told the inquiry that if the Omicron variant, which only emerged in November 2021, had been the first strain, “the whole system would have collapsed.” Sir John pictured after being made a Companion of Honor at an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle in December

Asked by Tory MP Greg Clark like another ‘will ever happen,” Sir John interjected, “I would bet my house on it.”

The Canadian-born immunologist added: ‘Everyone has to get used to that.

‘The real question is: what are the chances of this happening in the short term?

‘It will certainly happen in the medium or long term.

‘We do a lot of things that carry a very high risk. Climate change will not contribute to this, because insects move everywhere.

“Some of the better estimates suggest there is a 20 to 30 percent chance of another pandemic in the next 15 to 20 years. That’s a big number.

“Whether it’s a really profound pandemic or one that’s not that bad, I think we’ll have to wait and see, but it seems inconceivable to me that we won’t have another major event.”

Sir John was also a member of the expert advisory group of the Government’s Vaccine Taskforce, set up to accelerate research into producing a Covid vaccine.

He was among those who helped seal the deal with pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca to produce the Oxford vaccine – which is estimated to have saved more than six million lives worldwide in the first year of its rollout.

He told MPs the Covid pandemic could have been ‘much worse’ as the number of infected people who died was low compared to what could be expected for respiratory viruses.

Sir John said: ‘A mortality rate of one per cent or less for viral respiratory infections… For people who have lost loved ones that is a disaster.

“But you know, just to be clear: from a social perspective, that’s not too bad.”

SARS, for example, had a mortality rate of about 10 percent.

If the Omicron variant had been the initial strain, instead of Wuhan, there would have been five times as many deaths and the “whole system would have collapsed,” he warned.

However, he later admitted he was “disappointed” by the UK’s Covid research and its inability to go into the “real serious details of the science underlying” the pandemic.

He said: I’m a little disappointed by the research and where it’s been so far. I had hoped that it would lead us to a position where we would understand what we did right and wrong during the last pandemic.

‘But also what we can do to meet the future challenges of infectious disease pandemics.

Sir John was also a member of the expert advisory group of the Government’s Vaccine Taskforce, set up to accelerate research into producing a Covid vaccine. He was among those who helped seal the deal with pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca to produce the Oxford vaccine – which is estimated to have saved more than six million lives worldwide in the first year of its rollout. Sir John is pictured being made a Companion of Honor by King Charles III at Windsor Castle in December

‘We’re not really there yet. Frankly, it seems to me more of a program for the legal profession, because I don’t think we’ve gotten into the really serious details of the science behind it yet.”

He added: “There has been a lot of discussion about the process. One of the implied outcomes was that if we get another pandemic it might be good to have another team in the number 10.

“I’m not sure how that helps. I just don’t think that will really make a difference.’

It comes as Sir Jeremy Farrar, an influential member of SENSIBLE – No10’s advisory panel told the Covid inquiry last year that a new pandemic is ‘inevitable’.

Providing evidence remotely, he said: ‘It is clear that we live in a pandemic era, in which pandemics will occur more frequently and more complexly.

“And yet, when governments are faced with the challenges of everyday life, it is extremely difficult to also put in place those critical infrastructures, resilience, peak capacity and reserve capacity that would allow us to deal with the unexpected, but inevitable. disruptions that will occur.’

Sir Jeremy, who now works for the World Health Organisation Chief scientist, stop SAGE during the pandemic after condemning the country’s laissez-faire response.

He also co-authored a book titled “Spike: The Virus v The People,” in which he told his “inside story” of how the crisis unfolded.

He told the inquiry: ‘I think there is complacency in Britain and the rest of the world, despite the warnings over the last 20 years, about the need to prepare for these kinds of major disruptive events that are much further afield. than the health of the whole. of society.

“And Britain was, yes, complacent in terms of planning for that.”