Jonathan Van-Tam is set to become the latest former government adviser with a front-row view of the pandemic to give evidence to the Covid Inquiry.
Mr Van-Tam was the deputy chief medical officer for England throughout the pandemic and played a significant role in the Government’s response.
But first, questioning of Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, has resumed.
On Tuesday he told the Inquiry that Britain’s pandemic preparedness plans ahead of Covid were “not particularly helpful” and would have been “woefully deficient” even for a flu pandemic.
He said that it was clear that the plans had been drawn up by “people who had just been through a pandemic in which the mortality was very low”.
Sir Chris added: “If there had been a plan that laid out ‘this is how the playbook should run’, it would almost certainly have been the wrong plan and could even have slowed us down because we would have then spent ages arguing about whether this was the right plan and adapting the plan.”
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