Government would have paid more attention if threat had been terrorism – Whitty

The Government would have paid much more attention to a terrorist threat than it did to the risks posed by Covid-19 amid a “systemic failure”, the public inquiry into the pandemic has heard.

England’s chief medical officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty said there was an “opportunity where we could probably have moved up a gear or two across Government” in early February 2020 if the system had been “electrified” by the information it already had on Covid.

Under questioning from Hugo Keith KC, lead inquiry to the counsel, Sir Chris agreed there was a systemic failure but said he was not criticising individuals.

He said if had warned that 100,000 people could die in a terrorist attack, the chance the system would have carried on