UK Pandemic Plan Criticized for Focusing on Flu Threat, Says Health Chief and Former Prime Minister

The director general of the Department of Health and Social Care's Global Health division, Clara Swinson, has defended the UK's pandemic plan, which focused on influenza, stating that it was a reasonable decision at the time. She acknowledged that the plan could have been updated in some areas, such as technology, but the basic premise remained the same. Swinson also stated that the plan had been updated to reflect the need for a strategy that covered all routes of transmission. The inquiry also heard that vulnerable people were not directly considered during pandemic planning, and that the UK did not run out of PPE nationally during the pandemic.