The next pandemic could be even more deadly 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 killed at least 227,000 in the UK, was potentially nowhere near as bad as it could have been.
The epidemiologist told the Covid Inquiry the UK made a mistake in preparing only for an influenza pandemic rather than hedging bets across a multitude of different outbreaks, including coronavirus.
Professor Woolhouse, a member of the Scientific Pandemic Infections group on Modelling (SPI-M) which advised Government during the pandemic, said he did not want to cast himself as a ‘doom-monger’, but warned the next outbreak could be far worse.
He told the inquiry in London: ‘I hope this doesn’t sound too shocking, but on the scale of potential pandemics, Covid was not at the top and it was possibly quite far from the top.
Professor Mark Woolhouse said the coronavirus outbreak, which killed at least 227,000 in the UK, was potentially nowhere near as bad as it could have been
‘It may be that next time — and there will be a next time, I don’t know when, it may be quite some time in the future — we will be dealing with a virus that is much more deadly, and is also much more transmissible, in which case actually the things we did to control Covid wouldn’t work anyway.
‘I am not sitting here as a doom-monger saying this is going to happen soon, but I am confident enough to tell Government that this is something you should be concerned about, you should be prepared for.
‘The next pandemic could be far more difficult to handle than Covid was, and we all saw the damage that that pandemic caused.’
The inquiry, which is in its fourth week, has repeatedly heard from scientists and politicians that the UK failed to prepare for a pandemic other than 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’re deciding whether to invest your budget on a single horse running in the Grand National, and you brought a committee of horse racing experts together to decide which one you should put your money on, you would pretty likely end up with the favourite. That is a very rational strategy.
Government data up to May 23 shows the number of deaths of people whose death certificate mentioned Covid as one of the causes, and seven-day rolling average. Baroness Hallett told the inquiry she intends to answer three key questions: was the UK properly prepared for the pandemic, was the response appropriate, and can lessons be learned for the future?
‘But the problem is there’s an awful lot of horses in the Grand National, and the chance of the favourite winning is actually quite small.
‘If you bet on the favourite, you are very likely to lose your money. I think that’s a fair analogy to how we were viewing pandemic threats at the time.’
He suggested the correct strategy was to ‘hedge your bets’ — planning for lots of different outcomes.
Earlier, the inquiry heard local health were frequently kept ‘out of the loop’ by central Government during the pandemic.
Directors of Public Health, who take the lead on major health issues affecting local populations, said they only found out about guidance during the early stages of the pandemic by ‘looking at the television or reading the papers’.
Professor Jim McManus, President of the Association of Directors of Public Health, said there was a ‘top-down’ approach which meant Government departments and civil servants did not speak to local teams.
He told the inquiry: ‘Sometimes we had no response or communication and we found out at the same time as the rest of the population on the 5pm bulletin about the new guidance.’
He added: ‘I think it is a regret on the part of Directors of Public Health that communications between national government and local directors of public health – certainly in England – was sometimes less than optimal, and could have been improved.’
He said he and his colleagues across the country set up their own forums to discuss and share information, as it was not getting through from Westminmster.
He said cutting out Directors of Public Health was problematic because the Westminster-centric approach ignored specific local concerns.
‘We know our local areas and our local communities,’ he said.
The inquiry continues.
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