![\"Covid-19\"](\"https:\/\/www.eldigitaldeasturias.com\/noticias\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/connection-4884862_1280-360x245.jpg\")
London (PA Media\/dpa) – The British government \u00abdid not react fast enough\u00bb in the early stages of the pandemic, a leading health expert has said.<\/p>\nLondon (PA Media\/dpa) – The British government \u00abdid not react fast enough\u00bb in the early stages of the pandemic, a leading health expert has said.<\/p>\n
Sage adviser Sir Jeremy Farrar has lamented the slow pace of the Government’s initial response to the pandemic in an interview with The Times.<\/p>\n
Sir Jeremy’s comments come in advance of his new book \u00abSpike: The Virus v The People,\u00bb which details his account of the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
Sir Jeremy, who is also director of the Wellcome Trust, told the paper it was clear in the early stages of the outbreak that the Government response needed to be military-like.<\/p>\n
He said: \u00abCertainly in my lifetime, and even in the past 100 years if you exclude war, I can’t think there’s been such a disruptive event in the world.<\/p>\n
\u00abIt was very clear in the first quarter of 2020 that this was going to affect every single aspect of society, from the economy to jobs to education, everywhere.<\/p>\n
\u00abYou have to be personality-independent and it has to be able to click into gear. I don’t like military analogies, but when a moment of crisis strikes, the military would not say, ‘We’ll be organised in a year. Give us a shout then’.<\/p>\n
\u00abThe military has to be able to respond within days, minutes and hours. An exponentially increasing pandemic is the same.<\/p>\n
\u00abThe British state machinery did not get a grip. The machinery of government did not click in fast enough.\u00bb<\/p>\n
Sir Jeremy added that he always opposed chasing a herd immunity strategy, despite some public health officials initially believing it to be a viable approach.<\/p>\n
He said: \u00abHerd immunity by natural infection is a mirage.<\/p>\n
\u00abIt would take decades. I don’t know where the idea came from; it beggars belief.<\/p>\n
\u00abFrom a public health or clinician’s perspective, laying out a strategy which you knew would lead to 400,000-500,000 deaths and not trying to do something about that would just be unacceptable.\u00bb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
London (PA Media\/dpa) – The British government \u00abdid not react fast enough\u00bb in the early stages of the pandemic, a leading health expert has said. Sage adviser Sir Jeremy Farrar has lamented the slow pace of the Government’s initial response to the pandemic in an interview with The Times. Sir Jeremy’s comments come in advance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1079847,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1095677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-actualidad"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t