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The former chief scientific adviser to the government Sir Patrick Vallance has said another pandemic is “absolutely inevitable” and urged the incoming British government to focus on preparing for it, warning “we are not ready yet”.
Speaking at a panel event at the Hay festival in Powys, Vallance said it is “great we are having an election” as there are “clearly issues that need to be sorted out”. One of the things the next government must do is implement “better surveillance to be able to pick these things up”, he said.
He also reiterated what he said to G7 leaders in 2021, that “we need to be much faster, much more aligned – and there are ways to do this – at getting rapid diagnostic tests, rapid vaccines, rapid treatments, so that you don’t have to go into the extreme measures that took place” during the Covid-19 pandemic. The measures he recommends are possible to implement, Vallance believes, but “require some coordination”.
He said that by 2023 the G7 had “sort of forgotten” about the points he had made in 2021. “You can’t forget about it,” he urged, recommending that pandemic preparations are treated similarly to the armed forces.
“We know we have to
have an army, not because there’s going to be a war this year, but we
know it’s an important part of what we need as a nation,” he said. “We
need to treat this preparedness in the same way and not to view it as an
easy thing to keep cutting back when there’s no sign of a pandemic –
because there won’t be a sign of a pandemic.”...<<<Read More>>>....