Next pandemic could be even deadlier than Covid, Government adviser warns

The next pandemic could be even deadlier than Covid, a top scientist warned today as he pleaded for the UK to be better prepared for a future health crisis.

Professor Mark Woolhouse said the coronavirus outbreak, which left at least 227,000 dead in the UK, may not have been nearly as bad as it could have been.

The epidemiologist told the Covid research that the UK has made a mistake in only preparing for a flu pandemic rather than hedging bets on a wide variety of outbreaks, including the coronavirus.

Professor Woolhouse, a member of the Scientific Pandemic Infections modeling group (SPI-M) who advised the government during the pandemic, said he didn’t want to cast himself as a ‘doommonger’ but warned the next outbreak could be much worse are .

He told the London study: “I hope this doesn’t sound too shocking, but on the scale of possible pandemics, Covid was not at the top and may have been quite far from the top.

“It could be that next time – and there will be a next time, I don’t know when, it could be quite some time in the future – we will have to deal with a virus that is much more deadly, and also much more transmissible, in which case the things we did to get Covid under control wouldn’t actually work anyway.

“I am not sitting here as a doomsayer saying this is going to happen soon, but I am confident enough to tell the government that this is something you should be concerned about, prepared for.

“The next pandemic could be much harder to handle than Covid, and we’ve all seen the damage that pandemic has done.”

The inquiry, which is entering its fourth week, has repeatedly heard from scientists and politicians that the UK has failed to prepare for a pandemic beyond the strict parameters of a flu-like outbreak.

Professor Woolhouse said this strategy was like betting on just one horse at the Grand National.

He said: “If you decide whether you want to invest your budget in a single horse running in the Grand National, and you assemble a committee of horse racing experts to decide which horse to put your money on, you would probably end. on with the favourite. That is a very rational strategy.

Government data through May 23 show the number of deaths of people whose death certificates listed Covid as one of the causes, and the seven-day rolling average. Baroness Hallett told the inquiry she intends to answer three key questions: was the UK well prepared for the pandemic, was the response appropriate and can lessons be learned for the future?

“But the problem is that there are so many horses in the Grand National and the chance of the favorite winning is actually pretty slim.

If you bet on the favorite, chances are you will lose your money. I think that’s a good analogy to how we viewed pandemic threats at the time.”

He suggested the correct strategy was to “hedge your bets” – planning for many different outcomes.

Previously, the research heard that local government was often kept “out of the loop” by the central government during the pandemic.

Health directors, who are at the forefront of major health issues affecting locals, said they were only aware of guidance during the early stages of the pandemic by “watching the television or reading the newspapers.”

Professor Jim McManus, president of the Association of Directors of Public Health, said there was a ‘top-down’ approach, meaning government departments and officials did not speak to local teams.

He told the study: “Sometimes we had no response or communication and found out about the new guidelines at the same time as the rest of the population on the 5 p.m. bulletin.”

He added: ‘I regret on the part of the directors of public health that communication between the national government and local directors of public health – certainly in England – was sometimes sub-optimal and could have been better.’

He said he and his colleagues across the country had set up their own forums to discuss and share information as it was not coming through from Westminster.

He said eliminating public health directors was problematic because the Westminster-focused approach ignored specific local concerns.

“We know our local areas and our local communities,” he said.

The investigation continues.