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During his testimony at the Covid-19 inquiry, former health secretary Matt Hancock criticized the UK’s pandemic planning strategy, which focused on post-disaster cleanup rather than prevention. He argued that the country should prioritize efforts to stop a pandemic from occurring in the first place, such as virus suppression measures.
Hancock, who served as health secretary from 2018 to 2021, attributed many of the shortcomings in the UK’s preparedness to this flawed approach. He highlighted deficiencies in laboratory testing and contact tracing scalability, supply and delivery of personal protective equipment, and availability of suitable antiviral medicine.
During his questioning, Hancock also acknowledged diverting Department of Health and Social Care resources away from pandemic planning to address the threat of a no-deal Brexit. As a result, recommendations from the 2016 pandemic simulation exercise called Cygnus were not fully implemented by early 2020 when Covid began spreading.
Hancock justified the diversion of resources by emphasizing the need to target threats, such as a disorganized Brexit. However, he admitted that Cygnus’s recommendations might not have been relevant because they were based on the same worst-case scenario planning that informed the UK’s overall approach.
Apologizing for the loss of lives, Hancock expressed his hope that the inquiry would lead to the implementation of more effective preventive measures for future pandemics. He also took credit for prioritizing the development of the UK’s domestic vaccine manufacturing capacity to reduce reliance on overseas supplies.
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