Chaired by crossbench peer Heather Hallett, the inquiry pointed to Britain's preparations for a no-deal Brexit, which were taking place around the time of a major government training exercise on responding to an influenza pandemic. <\/p>\n
After the training operation named \"Exercise Cygnus\" in 2016, 22 recommendations were made to improve the U.K.'s response to a pandemic. Just eight of these were completed by June 2020, six months after the pandemic began and the inquiry cites the competing demands of no-deal Brexit planning as a reason for this \"inaction.\" <\/p>\n
Other avenues of preparation for potential pandemics were also paused due to \"Operation Yellowhammer,\" the codename for Whitehall's contingency planning for a no-deal Brexit. <\/p>\n
The existence of the Yellowhammer operation was leaked in 2018. It covered actions to be taken if Britain had crashed out of the European Union without a deal, identifying areas of risk. <\/p>\n
\"Several witnesses from the U.K. government and devolved administrations told the inquiry that a number of workstreams for pandemic preparedness were paused due to a reallocation of resources to Operation Yellowhammer,\" the report states. <\/p>\n
Elsewhere, the inquiry pointed to \"several significant flaws\" in the U.K.'s systems of building preparedness, including an \"outdated\" strategy, a failure to account for \"pre-existing health and societal inequalities and deprivation\" and a \"lack of adequate leadership.\" <\/p>\n
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Brexit hit UKs pandemic response, Covid inquiry finds - POLITICO Europe<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chaired by crossbench peer Heather Hallett, the inquiry pointed to Britain's preparations for a no-deal Brexit, which were taking place around the time of a major government training exercise on responding to an influenza pandemic. After the training operation named \"Exercise Cygnus\" in 2016, 22 recommendations were made to improve the U.K.'s response to a pandemic. Just eight of these were completed by June 2020, six months after the pandemic began and the inquiry cites the competing demands of no-deal Brexit planning as a reason for this \"inaction.\" Other avenues of preparation for potential pandemics were also paused due to \"Operation Yellowhammer,\" the codename for Whitehall's contingency planning for a no-deal Brexit. Continue reading