Re: Re-inventing communicable disease control?
I agree with a lot of what you say. However...
" 'Science' cannot provide reliable answers during the timescale of a 'flu-like pandemic."
AIUI one of the problems was that our preparatory thinking, such as it was, was based on influenza and Covid wasn't. There was a need to gain more understanding on the fly. In the circumstances the only answers that might have a chance of handling the situation would have to be those gained during the pandemic. In that respect find what treatments were effective and communicating that within the medical profession were effective. I'm thinking of the use of specific inflammatories on the one hand and the fact that readily available CPAP could be sufficiently effective in many cases and less invasive than standard ICU respirators when appropriate.
"The vaccine fiasco was appalling: prudent assessment procedures previously required for new vaccine roll-out were ignored, this particularly lamentable in the instance of introducing a hitherto untested production technology."
Again, the existing procedures were always going to be too slow for dealing with a rapidly developing pandemic caused by a novel pathogen. Taking a few years would not have been prudent either. (And, of course, Jenner whom yu mentioned didn't have them available.)
I don't think "the science" did too badly. Whether HMG would have recognised it if it had slapped them across the face with a wet fish is a different matter, of ocurse.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
