Covid inquiry: Astonishing reluctance to call Covid civil emergency – expert

The
inquiry is shown a briefing that PHW prepared on 11 March
making the case for the Welsh government to declare a major incident.

It outlined predictions that Wales would see 1.5 million symptomatic cases, 200,000 requiring hospital admission, an estimated 18,000 needing mechanical ventilation and 25,000 predicted deaths.

The
briefing also said that a “recurring theme of lessons learned” from past
situations was that “major incidents are not declared soon enough”.

Sandifer tells the hearing: “I
just felt we needed to lay our cards on the table and say to Welsh government
‘this is how we see it, are you going to use emergency legislation’?”

He confirms that the response relayed to him from Welsh government was that such
a declaration “would not be helpful”.

The first death from Covid in Wales was recorded on 15 March.