Lessons from Covid 19 must be acted upon

IN 1969 the government was in receipt of the report of the Northumberland Committee on the 1967 foot and mouth epidemic. In 2000, when foot and mouth disease struck again that report languished in a drawer, its recommendations ignored. Following that epidemic, the government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, was instrumental in assembling many of the world’s top academics and scientists to set out a “foresight programme” as a guide should a similar epidemic occur, especially should the disease be a zoonosis as Covid 19 has proved to be.

The recommendations of those experts, like those of the Northumberland Committee before them, likewise languish in a drawer somewhere.

That there will be experts, scientific, medical and legal, willing to contribute to an official inquiry into the response to the Covid 19 epidemic is beyond doubt.

The public who will pay for this inquiry would like an assurance that if at any time in the future similar circumstances should arise, someone in government will break with tradition and actually get the report out, read it, and implement its recommendations.

John Tuck

Royal Wootton Bassett