6. Statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services: Update on COVID-19

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:31 pm on 12 October 2021.

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Photo of Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Labour 5:31, 12 October 2021

Diolch yn fawr. I think it’s unfair to say that we knew lots about COVID when it arrived. The very fact that we didn’t know for a long time that people could carry COVID and they were asymptomatic—that was something that we learnt much later on, after it had arrived, just as one example of things that we’ve learned. If you read the report that’s come from the House of Commons today, one of the things that it does say is that the UK’s pandemic planning was too narrowly and inflexibly based on a flu model and failed to learn the lessons from SARS, MERS and Ebola. It doesn’t mention the report that you are talking about. So, I think it’ll be interesting to see why this committee didn’t pick up on the report that you’re talking about. So, that’s certainly something that I’ll go and look at after this question.