Dinahmo
MaizieD Not quite true about Exercise Alice only just coming to public notice. Shortly after the pandemic started, back in 2020, I saw an interview with a scientist who had been involved in that exercise explaining that the government had been warned in 2016 about possible pandemics and that they had chosen to ignore the warnings.
There have, apparently, been several pandemic exercises. The scientist was most likely talking about Cygnus, that one was 2016. The former CMO, Professor Dame Sally Davies, gave evidence about an earlier exercise (2007) Winter Willow, which also seems to have been disregarded.
The report says
Despite carrying out simulation exercises, we heard that the UK did not adequately learn the lessons of previous pandemics
Exercise Alice
Exercise Alice was a British Middle East respiratory syndrome ( MERS-CoV) pandemic modelling exercise from 2016 involving officials from Public Health England and the Department of Health and Social Care and led by the Chief Medical Officer. The details of the exercise was kept secret on grounds of national security until October 2021.
(This is not from the report)
Prof. Davies was CMO in 2016. Strange that she didn't mention it in her evidence, given that it was dealing with diseases similar to covid. Clearly still a state secret?