More than three years after the ‘covid pandemic’ emerged, top scientists warn that the UK is no better prepared than it was in 2020.
The so called experts claim that another epidemic on the scale of Covid-19 is inevitable because public services are being dismantled and key research is being defunded.
They say that the disinvestment in infection-monitoring services, the dismantling of key infrastructure, and the state of the NHS mean that the country is “losing ground”.
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MSN reports: The warning comes as virologists told The Independent that the new Covid-19 variant behind a surge of 10,000 new Covid cases a day in India may turn more aggressive, and could become the dominant strain in the UK.
The variant, first identified in January and known as Arcturus, has been found in 22 countries, including the UK and the US, and has prompted India to resume its production of vaccines.
‘Sitting ducks’
Sir John Bell, a leading immunologist and a member of the UK’s Covid vaccine taskforce during the pandemic, said it was too easy to dismiss Covid-19 as a “once in a generation crisis”.
Writing in The Independent, he warned that it is “a question of when, not if, another pandemic strikes”, adding that the nation needs to adopt an “always on” approach that includes building a more resilient healthcare system, carrying out better surveillance, and identifying future threats.
“Despite everything we have learned, we are not ready for the next pandemic,” he wrote. “The next pandemic could be even more devastating than the last. We must be in a constant state of readiness for the next big health crisis – if we do not act now, we will not be forgiven.”
He referred to modelling that suggests there is a 38 per cent chance that another pandemic will happen within our lifetime, which would have “the potential to cause even greater destruction”.
Professor Teresa Lambe, one of the principal investigators leading the Oxford-AstraZeneca programme, said the UK had failed to take on board many “hard-learned lessons” from Covid. She warned that the public will be “sitting ducks” in a new pandemic if there are no further efforts by the government to invest in preparation.
