Select committee report on response to pandemic: whitewash thicker than I realised

 On 12th October, I wrote: "A brief glance at the summary of the Commons inquiry suggests some watering-down in the interests of achieving unanimity." That criticism was too mild, as Phil Hammond in the current Private Eye points out:

Asking former health secretary Jeremy Hunt, now health committee chair, to investigate the UK's pandemic preparation is akin to asking Dido Harding to chair the public inquiry. Perhaps not quite as independent as required.

[...]

The report wrongly paints a picture of the UK only planning for a flu pandemic. " the anticipated future risk of pandemic disease focused too closely on influenza rather than diseases like SARS and MERS that had in recent years appeared in Asian countries. Previous exercises to test the national response capability, namely Exercises Cygnus and Winter Willow, did not squarely address a disease with the characteristics of covid-19."

These reports did model very clearly what we would need to do for a flu pandemic, but most preparations were not put in place by Hunt.

Hunt's report curiously fails to mention that there were at least seven other pandemic exercises, including Exercise Alice in 2016, which looked precisely at how the UK should respond to the deadly coronavirus causing [MERS].

Exercise Alice concluded: "There was a general consensus on the need to identify capacity and capability of assets within the health system. Assets in this context would be all resources that would be required to effectively respond to a MERS-CoV outbreak such as trained personnel, appropriate PPE in sufficient quantities and the requisite beds with suitable clinical equipment. It was considered that senior engagement to direct resources, including across boundaries, was necessary for effective management."

[...] Neither Hunt nor his successor Matt Hancock has ever acknowledged the existence of Operation Alice. And yet countries hit by MERS responded very well to SARS-CoV-2 using similar strategies outlined in Operation Alice. The UK assessed the risk accurately and then ignored it.

Equally troubling, these seven pandemic reports would have remained entirely secret until the public inquiry, were it not for a freedom of information request.