The lockdown may be over and it might seem like life is finally returning to normal but another epidemic may be on the way. Public services are torn apart and key research is being defunded, as a result, experts claim the UK is not ready for the next global pandemic.
Nearly three years after the pandemic, top scientists believe that the UK is not better prepared for a pandemic than it was in 2020. They add that another global outbreak similar to Covid-19 is unavoidable. However, the lack of funding in infection-monitoring services, the deconstruction of key infrastructure, and the general state of the NHS mean the country is “losing ground”.
This comes after virologists spoke to The Independent to share that the new Covid-19 variant which has caused an outbreak of 10,000 new Covid cases a day in India could be more aggressive and become the ruling strain in the UK.
The variant which is also known as Arcturus was first found in January. It’s now been identified in 22 countries including the UK and the US. India is now resuming the production of vaccines.
Sir John Bell, a leading immunologist and a member of the UK’s Covid vaccine taskforce during the pandemic, thinks it’s “a question of when, not if, another pandemic strikes”, sharing that the U.K should try to have an always-on” approach that incorporated created a more resilient healthcare system, developing better surveillance and highlighting future threats.
“Despite everything we have learned, we are not ready for the next pandemic,” he adds. “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.”
Bell cited a model that suggests a 38% probability that we will see another pandemic in our lifetime which would have “the potential to cause even greater destruction.”
“We’re in the same position as we were in 2020. Nothing has changed... if anything it has got worse,” Sir David King, a former chief scientific adviser to the government, who led the 2006 research told The Independent.
The government has failed to invest in the NHS, he says and he was “no doubt” that it was in “a worse position than it was three years ago”.
“That’s what the pandemic in 2020 proved: that we had jettisoned all of the processes that would have managed the epidemic. I see no signs of this being reversed at the moment,” he adds.