The former chief scientific adviser to the government Sir Patrick Vallance has said another pandemic is âabsolutely inevitableâ and urged the incoming British government to focus on preparing for it, warning âwe are not ready yetâ.
Speaking at a panel event at the Hay festival in Powys, Vallance said it is âgreat we are having an electionâ as there are âclearly issues that need to be sorted outâ. One of the things the next government must do is implement âbetter surveillance to be able to pick these things upâ, he said.
He also reiterated what he said to G7 leaders in 2021, that âwe need to be much faster, much more aligned â and there are ways to do this â at getting rapid diagnostic tests, rapid vaccines, rapid treatments, so that you donât have to go into the extreme measures that took placeâ during the Covid-19 pandemic. The measures he recommends are possible to implement, Vallance believes, but ârequire some coordinationâ.
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He said that by 2023 the G7 had âsort of forgottenâ about the points he had made in 2021. âYou canât forget about it,â he urged, recommending that pandemic preparations are treated similarly to the armed forces.
âWe know we have to have an army, not because thereâs going to be a war this year, but we know itâs an important part of what we need as a nation,â he said. âWe need to treat this preparedness in the same way and not to view it as an easy thing to keep cutting back when thereâs no sign of a pandemic â because there wonât be a sign of a pandemic.â
He mentioned the World Health Organizationâs push for the pandemic accord, a proposed agreement for countries to work together to prepare for pandemics, as one of the âsteps in the right directionâ that are being taken. âBut I donât think thereâs enough focus,â he said. If this issue gets pushed off G7 and G20 agendas, âweâll be in exactly the same position, and I hope thatâs an important outcome of the inquiryâ.
That said, he said there are issues with the speed and efficiency of how inquiries are conducted, and said we have âgot to work out a better wayâ of doing them.
Though Vallance thinks it is about time there was an election, he did praise the outgoing governmentâs anti-smoking bill, and said he is disappointed it wonât go through before the election. âI think that needs to be picked up rapidly afterwards.â
Asked whether protesters should have been allowed to play Things Can Only Get Better during Rishi Sunakâs speech outside 10 Downing Street on Wednesday, he said he thinks such protests are âpart of our democracyâ and that Sunak and his teamâs decision not to find a location for the speech where he could have been heard âis a sign of incompetenceâ.
âThe chaos of that event was emblematic,â he said.
However, he does believe certain acts of protest cross a line. Vallance is the chair of the Natural History Museum and said he thinks an incident when paint was thrown over an exhibition was âwrongâ, and had the Just Stop Oil protesters managed to damage Magna Carta earlier this month, that would have been wrong too.
