I'm just thankful it's not spread by vapour and is not more deadly - learning that the UK doesn't keep a stock of even basic PPE in case of pandemic was rather disconcerting...
I'm fairly certain the UK used to, although less certain about which bits of the UK was responsible. So waay back in the early '90s, some friends and I were thinking about buying a 'bunker' in Essex. It was pretty huge and used to be part of our Cold War strategic reserve storage for (I think) non-munitions stocks. Memory is a bit rusty, but didn't have obvious magazines in it anyway. I think those sites were part of a joint MoD/Civil Defence storage network, but sold off as a combination of cutbacks and peace dividend. I think it ended up being sold for document storage & we didn't buy it as it wouldn't have been practical (ie affordable) to bring it up to fire safety specs to have people in it.
But such is/was politics. Given the threat of bioterrorism, including state-sponsored, it would have seemed sensible to have stockpiles. And those probably exist(ed), just understocked for current events. I'm guessing there was an assumption that any bionasty could have been detected and isolated quickly, before it became a national problem. Which seems a little short sighted, ie plan for the worst, hope for the best, and AFAIK the basic PPE we're out of would have been easy to store long-term.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
