What will the next pandemic look like – and are we ready?

UK's plan was 'ineffective for Covid-19' and hasn't been revised, while NHS staff shortages could impact capacity to respond to disease outbreak

Illustration of a scientist using a microscope, organic cells, a genome sequence, jungle and animals
(Image credit: Illustration by Stephen Kelly / Getty Images)

A future pandemic as devastating as Covid is "a certainty", warned the UK's chief medical officer.

The NHS faced an "absolutely catastrophic situation" when the coronavirus first hit in 2020, Chris Whitty told the Covid-19 inquiry last week. But according to the first report from the public inquiry, published in July, reforms made since to better prepare for the next pandemic had "fail[ed] on a number of grounds".

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us

  Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.