Letter to the Nottm Post: Why we need an inquiry into pandemic plans

Professor Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist, stated this week that if the government had started lockdown a week earlier, the death rate would have halved. Professor Steven Reicher, a member of the Governments advisory group on behavioural science, criticised Boris Johnson's defence of his advisor as undermining the feeling of collective responsibility necessary for lockdown.

Other countries have adopted different strategies to handling Coronavirus, and, so far, seem to have better results. The Government has access to some of the finest scientists in the world, and yet their handling of the Coronavirus pandemic has seemed flatfooted at best. I appreciate this is an unprecedented situation in modern times, but it was predictable. We know this because it was predicted. The government has had pandemics on their risk register for more than ten years, and has run two simulations of flu pandemics in recent years.

I don't know whether the government or scientists got it right, and whether any recommendations from simulations were implemented, but it is hugely important to learn the lessons from this. We need an independent inquiry of the Government's handling of the pandemic to begin as soon as possible.

Tad Jones
Monsell Drive
Redhill