Politicians including David Cameron, George Osborne and Matt Hancock braced to face criticism about their decision-making
Professor Smeeth also said that a pandemic treaty with other countries was “essential”.
He added:
We should find ways to collectively defend our whole planet and commit to sharing data, know-how and resources – such as surveillance tools, protective equipment and vaccines – on a global scale while we can.
We don’t know what the next dangerous outbreak will be, what we do know is that it’s going to happen. We need to seize the moment to agree new ways of working, and deeper collaboration so that we are better prepared for the next global disease threat when it arrives.
The key lesson from the first UK Covid Inquiry report is that if the UK waits for the next pandemic to emerge, it will be too late.
The fight against pandemics is like counter-terrorism, we must use similar approaches such as gathering and sharing the best intelligence on global disease threats and joining forces to confront outbreaks before they become pandemics.