The implementation of a large scale testing programme is really not that difficult, as long as it is planned well in advance, and there are more than sufficient resources. An emergency programme could easily have been arranged.
At the heart of the problem, therefore, is neither a lack of capacity nor capability. The real reason for the failure to mount an extensive programme lies in
the document I introduced
yesterday setting out the "Pandemic Influenza Strategic Framework".
Close scrutiny of this shows that there was no provision made for mass testing. The testing was to be deployed in the initial stages only to provide early estimates of the likely severity and impact on the UK of the epidemic, and then to provide data in an "attempt to model the course of the pandemic".
When one then looks at the "planning assumptions" it is easy to see why this stance is taken. From the very start, the planners concede defeat, stating that stopping "the spread or introduction of the pandemic virus into the UK is unlikely to be a feasible option".
They then work on the basis that, once the virus is established in the UK, sporadic cases and clusters will be occurring across the country in 1-2 weeks and about 50 percent of the population may be affected in some way or another. Chillingly, they also suggest that up to 50 percent of [NHS] staff may be affected over the period of the pandemic, "either directly by the illness or by caring responsibilities".
What is not spelt out though are the necessary consequences of this stance. For these, one has to go to the
guidance site for local planners, to whom is passed the gruesome work of dealing with the casualties.
Under the heading "Management of deaths", we are told that scientific modelling estimates that the UK could experience up to 750,000 additional deaths over the course of a pandemic. These figures, the guidance adds, might be expected to be reduced by the impact of countermeasures, but the effectiveness of such mitigation is not certain.
Thus, we learn that local planners "have been set the target" of preparing to extend capacity on a precautionary but reasonably practicable basis, and aim to cope with a population mortality rate of up to 210,000 to 315,000 additional deaths. As to timescale, these deaths may possibly occur "over as little as a 15 week period and perhaps half of these over three weeks at the height of the outbreak".
I am minded of that epic scene in the film
Independence Day, where the President of the United States is brought face-to-face with one of the invading aliens, whence the President asks of it, "what do you want us to do?" The alien replies with brutal finality: "Die!"
That, it seems, was our role in this epidemic. Originally, no serious plans were made to control it and, while some mitigation was anticipated, the main practical response was to plan for the mass disposal of bodies. This was not outbreak management – it was the strategy of defeat.
We even have a carefully-drafted
59-page document setting out "a framework for planners preparing to manage deaths, which is only thirty pages shorter than the entire
Pandemic Influenza Response Plan.
eureferendum.com
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