Government “groupthink” meant it only planned for an influenza pandemic that would “inevitably spread like wildfire” and failed to recognise that early quarantine would have stopped Covid in its tracks, Jeremy Hunt said today. According to the Mail, the former Health Secretary told the Inquiry.
I know you may well want to talk about the issue of groupthink, but I think this was the first example.
Looking back with the benefit of hindsight – this was not what I thought at the time and I, with retrospect of course – I wish I had challenged at the time.
But there were no questions asked at any stage as to how do we stop it getting to the stage of 200,000-400,000 fatalities.
It was an assumption that if there was pandemic flu, it would spread, using layman’s terms like wildfire, and you pretty much couldn’t stop it. …
There was quite a lot of thinking but I think, looking back on it, it is very clear that it was very deeply entrenched, almost visibly in every single document relating to this, that you can see that there was an assumption that a mass fatality pandemic would be flu.
I think you’re going to come on and talk about Exercise Alice, which I wasn’t briefed about, which itself is telling. I was asked to take part in Exercise Cygnus.
But I think it is just interesting when you look at that, that the report on Exercise Alice is the only place that I can find which really talks about the importance of quarantining.
And if you look at this assumption that you can’t stop the spread of the virus, I think that was deeply entrenched when Covid arrived and we didn’t look at countries like South Korea and Taiwan, which had a very different assumption about the effectiveness of quarantining.
The fundamental issue was that we were — and by the way not just us, across western Europe and North America — there was a shared assumption that herd immunity was inevitably going to be the only way you could contain a virus because it spread like wildfire.
Hunt, who was Health Secretary from 2012 to 2018, added that the U.K. actually topped league tables of preparedness for pandemics.
Johns Hopkins University in America said that the U.K. was the second best prepared country in the world in the global health security index in 2019.
They had subcategories and one of their subcategories was which countries were best prepared for preventing the spread of a virus and scaling up treatment quickly, and we were top. We weren’t second best, we were top.
And so there was I think a completely wrong assumption and I think the truth is we were very well prepared for pandemic flu because we had put a lot of thinking into it. Exercise Cygnus was a huge thing.
But we hadn’t given nearly enough thought to other types of pandemic that might emerge and that was, with the benefit of hindsight, a wholly mistaken assumption.
Hunt claimed that early quarantine would have stopped Covid in its tracks:
If there was one thing that could have slowed the progress of Covid when it actually arrived, it was to understand the importance of early quarantining to stop the disease spreading, and to understand there are types of pandemic where it is worth putting a massive amount of effort into slowing the spread.
One of the very first [questions] we should have been asking ourselves is, ‘is this one of those pandemics that you can actually slow and save lives early on or not?’ And I don’t think we had asked those questions.
How is the myth that South Korea somehow nipped the virus in the bud by being ace at Test and Trace still being repeated in 2023? It only takes a quick look at the data for the region to see that South Korea had no better outcomes in 2020 than the surrounding countries, which were not known for their quarantine prowess, and in the case of Japan did very little by way of countermeasures. Presumably South Korea’s contact tracing was so hot it kept the virus under control in Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand as well.
South Korea also did not fare well when Omicron showed up in 2022 – a variant which affected the region much more strongly than previous variants. Where was the quarantine effect then?
Once again we find myths from the early days of Covid still being repeated unchallenged by senior figures at the public inquiry. How will the right lessons be learned if they can’t even get the facts right?
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Hunt would say that he is clearly wrong, and he is a supporter of the Chines government and has a Chinese partner. How did he become our chancellor, a job for which he is totally unsuited for unless he is aiming to contribute to our country’s failure, which he is clearly good at.
Let’s instead look at his record as chancellor, based on his support by globalists deliberately trying to undermine our country. I get the impression Sunak and Hunt were forced upon us by these globalists, including it seems the majority of the Tory MP’s to drag our country down, which they are managing very well. Liz Truss was probably the last real Tory PM we will have, and when she tried to put forward proper conservative policies for growth the globalists and Andrew Bailey made sure she failed, and her policies were exchanged for high personal taxes and crippling company tax rates. Why would any company with the choice operate in the UK when for example the Irish Republic has a corporation tax rate which is half what these buffoons have imposed on our companies. I believe if the Tories had had the courage to ignore the globalists… Read more »
An excellent article and the commentary about it shows the calibre of readers of this site. I’m rather intrigued by Mr. Hunt so decided to take a further look at him.
Whilst ‘googling’ via image recognition, the above image, provided by this article on Mr. Hunt, I was inexplicably and inadvertently diverted to an image of ‘Kaa’ from Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book , Kaa appears in the 1967 animated adaptation by Walt Disney Productions
He sings a song ‘Trust In Me’…
Trust in me, just in me
Shut your eyes and trust in me
You can sleep safe and sound
Knowing I am around
Slip into silent slumber
Sailing on a silver mist
Slowly and surely your senses
Will cease to resist
Trust in me, just in me
Shut your eyes and trust in me
It took me sometime to realise that the Wikipedia reference to Kaa was, in fact not about Mr. Hunt…
Kaa is a huge and powerful snake, more than 100 years old and still in his prime…
After Kaa and Mowgli spend some time relaxing, bathing and wrestling, Kaa persuades Mowgli to visit a treasure chamber guarded by an old cobra beneath the same Cold Lairs.… Read more »
Jeremy *unt is such a stupid man. Perhaps some lab technicians quarantined in China back in Oct/Nov 2019 might’ve helped after that – forget it.
Anyway it was/is of insufficient danger in the big scheme of things. “Should’ve gone earlier and harder” with the first lockdown is probably his ignorant assumption – along with the Leader of the Opposition.
Quarantine
The practice of quarantine, as we know it, began during the 14th century in an effort to protect coastal cities from plague epidemics. Ships arriving in Venice from infected ports were required to sit at anchor for 40 days before landing. This practice, called quarantine, was derived from the Italian words quaranta giorni which mean 40 days.
It is interesting that the effort to stop the plague by isolating ships for 40 days would have done absolutely nothing because rats can swim and don’t understand rules. Over 600 years later and we adopt a similar ‘solution’ and in this case an airborne virus isn’t going to be stopped by masks or a 2 metre distance between people. The simplest rule is keep away from (genuinely) sick people. On the subject of the plague, in 2021 on BBC Radio 3 ‘In tune’ there was a discussion about a contemporary version of the Decameron. The original was written in 1353 by Giovanni Boccaccio and is a collection of one hundred nested tales told by a group of young men and women passing the time at a villa outside Florence while waiting out the gruesome Black Death plague. The following is an… Read more »
Funny how, as Health Secretary for 6 years, Hunt never ensured that the UK’s Pandemic Plan was to quarantine the entire population and try to stop a virus…..which couldn’t be stopped.
Instead the plan specifically ruled out lockdowns because they don’t work: the plan was to keep calm and carry on ….. and protect the vulnerable as best we could.
Was he asleep at the wheel?
And as how, as Health Secretary, he pushed under the carpet the report from Exercise Cygnus in 2016, a simulation of a ‘flu’ pandemic, that showed we were badly prepared for such a pandemic. The smug, ignorant prat wants to suggest that Rona was somehow different. He really does think that us proles are as thick as he is.
One massive question that makes the government very nervous is: “Why did you abandon the pre-existing pandemic plan and implement lockdown?”
The answer they are trying to make stick is that the plan was for flu instead of coronavirus.
Thus they “admit”, as Hunt did, that they hadn’t considered a non-flu pandemic in their plan, to deflect attention from the real question.
We need to ensure they are held accountable for their insane decision to abandon the perfectly good plan.
For the sake of those poor ignoramuses in government a viral infection is a viral infection is a viral infection. Calling it a different name doesn’t change a damn thing
The “official input” into the Commission seems to be majoring on “we planned for flu, not Coronaviruses.” I challenge anyone to point to literature showing a fundamental difference between the modes of transmission of influenzavirus and coronavirus infection.
What we do see is continued uncertainty about the modes of transmission of either. We certainly have no evidence that flu cannot be blocked by “quarantine” (whatever that means) but that Covid can.
The problem is we were not well prepared with an NHS already under great pressure and without basic requirements, such as adequate PPE supply chains, in place.
The red herring about preparing for a flu pandemic is totally irrelevant – both are respiratory viral infections that are almost impossible to contain by quarantine and lockdowns.
Perhaps Hunt has been too much under the influence of the Chinese way of doing things!
Well, next time, at the first hint we have of two people infected in China, we must cut off the country from all incoming transport of people, goods, food, oil and so on, and then prevent all internal movement in the country, even for “essential” workers.
That should fix it, proivided we keep it up for a couple of years whilst the storm rages across the rest of the world. A shame about the mass-starvation, of course, but if that’s what it takes to quarantine, that’s what it takes to quarantine. The lessons of New Zealand must be learned – except for the excess deaths post lockdown, of course.
The next thing you know, he will be telling us he knows how to make a success of the economy too.
Delusional. He still thinks lockdown was a good policy. It was not and never could be. A failed mass experiment.
Hunt is a communist and loves control. He admired Chinas approach but appears to have not quoted them here.
Hunt is shilling for money.
Oh dear. I wrote to Jeremy Hunt in early 2020 with my exposition of the “It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t kill people, so what you prioritise is management of those who get very sick. I suspect that, as with other letters I wrote to those in charge that it was never read.
China followed the WHO Pandemic Handbook – that’s what Dynamic Covid Zero was – and only locked down 7% of the population.
But it was the right 7%, in areas with fresh breakouts.
China took many measures, of course, but lockdowns were essential to their overall success.
I don’t believe the mortality figures that came/come out of China.
How about not believing any figures which come out of any official CCP source?
China had people forcibly locked down in appartment blocks until hunger revolts broke out because they were starving to death. This led to the abandonement of Zero COVID there and a short flare-up of COVID paranoia propaganda, Because there are so many people in China, who’ll now all be getting COVID, the global COVID apocalypse is finally going to happen now!!2 which was then quietly shelved after apocalypse again failed to materialize.
This was a totally idiotic proposition to begin with becaused it relied on people’s ignorance for credibilty. Zero COVID was never pursued in India, India never had a real national vaccination strategy and abandoned lockdowns early after some half-hearted, very leaky attempts and India is more populous than China.
<insert profanity here targetted at people telling really stupidly made up lies>
And did the inquiry KC ask him how he knew that early quarantine would have stopped the bug? Empirical evidence? Expert opinion? Just a hunch?
Biased inquiry. These people are offering opinions and are not being challenged.
The government failed to ‘realise’ this in part because it was not possible – nor was it necessary.
A deeply stupid man with a bit of power. A dangerous combination. What he is advocating WAS done. In China – with disastrous short medium and long term results. Yet he says it and there is silence. From his wife.
I just ask that my countrymen understand because I live here. All the crap and ninsense please this is a time where we need to pull together the best of things. I really hope so I will not countenance the fall of this country due to simply diffidence or uncertainty. I know that even if the majority fails that there are still fighting men in this country.
Trust me in the next five years you will see revelatins from species you didn’t even know existed. Libing beside us all this time. The real question is about us. I don’t mind saying this and that to people but if they lack individuality entirely then I feel that it would be better to be surrounded by plants. We are about to receive a very big revelation.
I’ve gotten involved in this story now. Never, even if you offered me millions, would I ever go down in one of those tiny submersibles. The missing 5 person crew are about 2.5 miles down, oxygen due to run out tomorrow and they’ve got 10 ships looking for them. I’m REALLY hoping for a good outcome and to wake up to positive news in the morning. Here’s the latest;
”Underwater noises were detected and rescue efforts were expanding Wednesday in the search for the missing submersible carrying five passengers to the Titanic wreckage site, a Coast Guard official said Wednesday.
An expert submariner from the British Royal Navy, a team of French specialists on remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and more ships and underwater vessels were joining the search, said Capt. Jamie Frederick, the First Coast Guard District response coordinator, in a news conference Wednesday afternoon.
The search was expanding “exponentially” across a surface area roughly two times the size of Connecticut and 2.5 miles deep, he said.”
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/06/21/missing-titanic-tourist-submarine-search-noises-live-updates/70341342007/
You can search every sacred text in eevery culture and context and one thing is quite clear. That there is nothing that God hates more than fear.
The war between techoncracy and humanity isn’t about to happen we are in the thick of it. If you accept that and live like a soldier then you have nothing to worry about and you will find beautiful relationships
People try to work out their affiliations. It is more like a blob that has the ability to shift its centre of gravty a bit this way and that. They have already decided that we have no choice in accepting what is to come. Essentially they have bet against the spirit and guile of humanity and they are losing. They know that they are about to go down but there is nowhere left for them to go so they might as well fight like an outhouse rat.
Hunt’s wife, Lucia Guo, comes from Xi’an in China. Hunt first met Guo in 2008, when she was working at Warwick University recruiting Chinese students for the university. They married in July 2009 and have a son and two daughters; Guo and the three children are low-profile and rarely appear in public. His wife presented a segment on Sky’s China Hour, a show coproduced by state-owned broadcaster China International Television Corporation.
If Hunt had been Health Secretary (or PM, God help us!) we’d still have been locked up. Hancock was human garbage who got off on the power trip; Hunt is just evil.
https://www.technocracy.news/imf-managing-director-we-are-working-hard-on-a-global-cbdc/
And another one. Again, no surprise to me but worth reading.
What I don’t understand about CBDCs is why there is no push back from the criminal fraternity? You would think they would be quivering in their Gucci loafers at the thought that all their money laundering schemes were going to be exposed by cbdcs? Ah yes, I think I get it, it’s the criminals themselves who are trying to introduce them.
https://www.technocracy.news/doug-casey-the-war-on-farmers-could-trigger-a-famine/
Dumping this here because nobody visits NR after 11 am.
Hardly news to me but it may be of interest.
Sadly the talks between the government and farmers here have amounted to nothing and Rutte will proceed with what they intend to do. The farmers go back to protesting. 🙁
”The discussions meant to bring about an end to the stalemate between the Cabinet and the agriculture sector over issues related to environmental policy, nitrogen emissions, and sustainability have been definitively discontinued, Chris Kalden said on Wednesday. Kalden formerly led the national nature reserve organization Staatsbosbeheer, and was was tasked with leading talks between the agriculture sector, the Cabinet, and other affected parties and stakeholders. As a result of the talks being dissolved, the Cabinet members said they now have no choice but to take measures into their own hands. The Cabinet will quickly consider what happens next, according to a letter to parliament from the agriculture minister.”
https://nltimes.nl/2023/06/21/landmark-agriculture-deal-collapses-cabinet-take-measures
Wow. Thanks for the update Mogs. Very depressing news. I fear the battle for the farming industry in Western nations is going to be fought out initially in the Netherlands and if those poor people are destroyed then the war will move successively through the other countries. It looks like another Holomodor or Mao’s great famine is on the way. The clear intent is to start the depopulation agenda via starvation but I am sure they will employ a multi pronged attack with another of Billy’s Scamdemics probable in 2024 or 2025 and possibly some sort of fiscal crisis also.
Great article. The DS needs to give more attention to Patrick Wood and Technocracy News.
I do & good link ✅
You can ask the question: are these people simply out of touch, lacking in insight and the desire for scrutiny or is it something else. I think the question is a redundant one because when you sink to the level of these characters you have essentially obliterated your true consciousness anyway. You just don’t care anymore. And there is the pathology of the addict. A junkie isn’t thinking about the long term effects of his crime he has more pressing concerns. And then embodied in law and custom is the cycle of corporate quarterly profits and all of the inefficiencies that such a short term view engenders. Our whole malaise isn’t mysterious at all if you allow yourself to look at it.
Poor man got the head screwed on wrong.
It would be better screwed on backwards!
Umm, it is!
The guy is talking out of his arse. I didn’t click on the article but did Hunt back up his statement with any sort of data? Because when in the history of any of our lives have we practiced ”early quarantining” for anything? He’s just saying meaningless words for the sake of it. Trying to wing it and sound like he knows his arse from his elbow when in fact he’s showing himself up to be a total ignorant and corrupt prat. We have extensive data which contradict every weasely word.
So, now we know. How to stop any old airbourne URV.
Early quarantine (whatever that really means) would have stopped it (whatever “it” really was) in its tracks.
So sayeth the fount of all knowledge medical.
Well he was the Health Secretary at the time…
Despicable ignorant idiot.
He seems to be suggesting the NZ approach of closing all borders and hiding under our beds, egregious test and trace followed by localised panic lockdowns.
So how early would he suggest? Once it’s in, it’s in, so you’d have to be pretty damn early. He’s likely thinking preemptive lockdown – just in case…
I bet he’ll be a supporter of the WHO treaty…
He definitely would support the WHO ! Traitorious Bar steward !!
After three years that Chunt could still be parroting this utter, childish nonsense is beyond insulting. Either that or he is way thicker than we can imagine.
Mr Cnut, to use the Private Eye moniker, doubtlessly knows which side of his bread is buttered: He’s tooting the Zero COVID horn because he reasonably expects that he will personally benefit from that. That’s already evident in his choice words: Spreading like wildfire, when used in the totally idiotic context of a virus causing a mild, flu-type disease, is not using laymen’s terms. It’s COVID expert terminology designed to make something harmless look as scary as possible.
I like that. Jeremy Cnut trying to hold back the tide of covid by locking us all down.
He’s not thick ! He is a scheming little SH1T !…
And what does it say about those who voted for him?
It was all just a psyop to control the population. All about control then, and setting us up for the next one now.