I’ve heard about stuff like this for years (albeit I did work in the Civil Service for a few years) but it hasn’t actually been covered up at all, its just buried in the depths of various public sector websites.
I’m not that worried about flu pandemics.
Bear in mind a few hundred people dead across Asia is a tiny fraction of the population. More people there are killed in road traffic collisions and street violence every day. The Asian countries have done very well in combatting the worst of H5N1, and advise the UK on how to deal with it.
Our country does have a public health service which has already had to react to a number of intense local crises, ranging from terrorist attacks to air crashes and multiple casualty RTCs.
I think there are actually two things going on which are interlinked but separate.
Firstly you have the NHS preparing for the effects of flu (or any other chronic illness), and to deal with mass numbers of casualties presenting to Emergency Departments.
I would expect that Trusts just outside London are put on standby to deal with any major incident in the capital, which makes perfect sense given some of the recent events in London. As scary as talk of “mass morgues” / casualty reception sounds, the morgues in some general hospitals aren’t as big as many realise!
Its fairly easy to fill one in a weekend in a big city (particularly with escalating levels of violence and the aggressive driving on todays roads) and end up with bodies left in shrouds in the Chapel of Rest. This isn’t good for morale and probably unhealthy.
Some areas such as East Anglia have ageing populations, a spate of illness could easily lead to a large number of deaths amongst the elderly. All these bodies need to go somewhere, be treated with respect but in such a way they do not cause a biohazard to other people in the NHS facility.
Secondly, all Councils have a local “Resillience plan” for any sort of emergency and a Risk Register outlining what the risks are and how to deal with them In my area there are plans for dealing with avian flu, but (as you would expect) also flooding of inland and tidal waterways – or even the North Sea breaching its defences! Add to that contingency plans for loss of electricity, gas, water supplies (which are flaky in some areas post-privatisation).
This stuff always happened, particularly during the Cold War when the threat was nuclear attack, but it used to be classified “restricted”. What has happened in recent times is that the authorities are being more open about their plans, which is a good thing but tends to lead to just as much is not more rumours, paranoia and a amount of exaggeration…
