Thread by @PaulNuki

1/ BREAKING: Top officials admit no mass testing capacity was ever planned in UK despite WHO warnings. @journobill reveals:

🧨 no mass testing planned for in national pandemic plan
🧨no mass testing used to contain virus in 2016 Exercise Cygnus dry run

telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/0…

2/ Senior Whitehall officials confirmed the need for mass testing "did not figure in our thinking" when drawing up plans to protect the country. "That may have been a mistake," said Prof Graham Medley, Chairman of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M)

3/ "Mass public testing has never been our strategy for any pandemic that I’m aware of," he told The Telegraph.

"The current problem is based upon the fact that we didn't invest in preparedness before all this happened."

3/ A 2nd official involved in 2016 Exercise Cygnus also confirmed: "We didn't plan for mass community testing at all, no. You could argue that was the wrong thing to do". More on Cygnus here: telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/2…

4/ Both officials say the reason mass testing was not planned for is because they planned for an influenza outbreak and "mass testing isn't appropriate for influenza because it has a much smaller duration of infection".

5/ But this seems nonsensical. Testing for a novel flu virus is arguably even more important as it may mimic the symptoms of lesser influenza viruses. And the duration of a new flu virus cannot be known. WHO guidelines make this point crystal clear....

6/ In an advisory document released in 2005, titled Responding To The Avian Influenza Pandemic Threat, the WHO advised countries to ready themselves for mass testing in the event of a major influenza outbreak...

7/ "Because the initial symptoms of H5N1 (bird flu) infection mimic those of many diseases common in these countries, accurate case detection requires the testing of large numbers of samples,” the document warned.

"Improved local capacity is therefore a more rational solution."

8/ So why did UK gov not plan for mass testing and containment of a virus in a pandemic? A genuine difference of opinion with WHO over influenza? Or an assumption that in a really big outbreak it would be allowed to run through the population as happened in Excercise Cygnus?

9/ The answer may or may not be contained in the report listing the findings of Exercise Cygnus which have never been published. Until then some might look to Whitehall pandemic history to understand its instincts...

10/ In the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, Sir Arthur Newsholme, Britain’s then senior medical officer, drafted a memorandum which recognised the deadly threat the virus posed and advised Britons to isolate themselves - the equivalent of our lockdown...

11/ But the memo was never sent out because of the need to keep the factories running. Instead, Sir Arthur said we should “carry on” as normal in light of the war effort. Thousands died but 'herd immunity' was eventually established.
telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness…