Editor

It is unclear from Mr Roger Louvet’s letter, ‘Lack of government competence to blame’ - as to which government he is blaming for any shortcomings in the response to Covid-19 in Wales. Surely it can only be the Welsh Labour Government?

He quotes Exercise Cygnus in 2016 as revealing multiple shortcomings in the UK’s preparedness to counter a pandemic. Exercise Cygnus tested the UK’s response to an influenza pandemic, not a coronavirus pandemic. The exercise was not designed to consider other potential pandemics, or to identify what action could be taken to prevent widespread transmission.

The Department of Health and 23 other government departments, as well as NHS Wales, NHS England, Public Health England, local public services, several prisons, and staff from the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland governments took part in the exercise. Mr Louvet should note that the participants were from the NHS, civil service and other public sector bodies, and that private sector companies pharma, logistics, private health, equipment manufacturers etc were not directly involved.

Roger Louvet constantly blames the private sector for all the ills of the country, rather than those public sector bodies whose role is to maintain the national risk register, introduce mitigation measures to reduce identified risks, and prepare for national crises, such as a coronavirus pandemic. The private sector has in the past six months stepped up to the plate by providing vast quantities of PPE, ventilators, logistics, track and trace, temporary hospitals, vaccine research etc, and all from a standing start.

It is the private sector that will get us out of this mess. They will generate the tax income to pay off our national debt, research and produce the vaccine to counter the virus, and pay for all the public sector bodies whose job it was to protect us in the first place.

John Rees Moss, Bala

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