Matt Hancock says UK pandemic planning was skewed towards disaster clear-up
The UK’s approach to pandemic planning was based on a flawed strategy that prioritised clearing up after a disaster over attempting to prevent one, former health secretary Matt Hancock told the Covid-19 inquiry on Tuesday.
“The doctrine of the UK was to plan for the consequences of a disaster: can we buy enough body bags? Where are we going to bury the dead? That was completely wrong,” said Hancock, giving evidence about his role in government before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020.
“As secretary of state, you have a limited set of resources and you have to make sure those resources are targeted at threats you face. One of those risks was a disorganised Brexit,” said Hancock.
But he added that Cygnus’s recommendations might not have proved relevant because they too were informed by the same worst-case scenario planning that had become embedded in the UK’s entire approach.
Apologising “profoundly . . . for each death that has occurred”, Hancock said he hoped the inquiry would ensure the UK stopped a future pandemic “in its tracks much, much earlier and that we have the systems in place to do that because I am worried that they are being dismantled as we speak”.
He also sought credit for prioritising early in his tenure as health secretary the ramping up of the UK’s capacity to produce its own vaccines in an effort to ensure the country would not be reliant on overseas supplies in a chaotic pandemic scenario.
“I insisted we pushed on domestic manufacturing and sought the funding to deliver on that,” he said.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:William Wallis
