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Why isn't the cover-up of Exercise Alice big news?

Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2021 12:44 pm
by IvanV
Somehow, it seems possible people reading this forum could have overlooked the scandal over Exercise Alice, so I'd better recite what it is. In 2016 Exercise Alice simulated a coronovirus epidemic. Such simulations occur roughly yearly, for various kinds of epidemic. It produced a long list of sensible recommendations which were well-founded on the basis of the simulation. But the government largely ignored them, did not implement them when the pandemic began. In June, the fact of Exercise Alice was leaked out, but the government tried to refuse to release the details on national security grounds. Fortunately the information commissioner saw through that, and in early October we were allowed to read the documents, with only minor redaction.

So the government had done an exercise and had useful lessons learned, which it largely ignored. Then it attempted an utterly ridiculous cover-up.

In case this piece of news has passed you by, you can read more about it in the BMJ and Grauniad and Private Eye.

But you won't read it on the BBC, at least google can't find it for me. The original June revelation was in the Daily Mail, but not the October reveal which demonstrated how incompetent the government had been in ignording the recommendations there.

So we have a really juicy scandal of the government having a very good source of information on what it ought to do, failing apparently to take any attention, doubtless because it found it politically convenient, and then thinking it cover it up with a ridiculous "national security" claim.

But apparently it isn't news. Why isn't it on the front pages?

Re: Why isn't the cover-up of Exercise Alice big news?

Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2021 1:24 pm
by Lew Dolby
Yep.

One key recommendation was that the UK should increase its store of (up-to-date) PPE.

Jeremy Hunt was Sec for Health at the time and (iirc) he reduced the warehoused PPE instead.

Re: Why isn't the cover-up of Exercise Alice big news?

Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2021 7:10 pm
by Sciolus
Corruption fatigue. Government-friendly newspapers. Government capture of the BBC.

Re: Why isn't the cover-up of Exercise Alice big news?

Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2021 8:33 pm
by Woodchopper
Firstly, here's the summary of recommendations:
Recommendations.jpg
Recommendations.jpg (195.92 KiB) Viewed 1123 times
Its difficult to see how following them would have made much of a difference.

Numbers eight and nine look relevant. But this is all that is written:
Recommendations 2.jpg
Recommendations 2.jpg (198.16 KiB) Viewed 1123 times
Secondly, do we know that the recommendations weren't followed? Perhaps someone did develop a plan to process community sampling in a MERS-CoV outbreak.

Thirdly, the exercise was for a different disease. We know its relevant, but that lessens the political impact.

Fourthly, this exercise is clearly the sort of thing produced by the worker bees. So long as a minister wasn't involved its unlikely that there would be a be a political scandal

Re: Why isn't the cover-up of Exercise Alice big news?

Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2021 3:52 pm
by tom p
I think that both 3 & 5 would have been very useful for HMG to have to hand in the current pandemic.
7-10 would have been vital and 9 & 10 could have saved billions.
2 could have been useful, but luckily the UK's researchers are clever people and were able to put together a very good series of trials on the hoof using their expertise (as derided a quality as it is)

Re: Why isn't the cover-up of Exercise Alice big news?

Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2021 4:27 pm
by jimbob
tom p wrote:
Fri Nov 26, 2021 3:52 pm
I think that both 3 & 5 would have been very useful for HMG to have to hand in the current pandemic.
7-10 would have been vital and 9 & 10 could have saved billions.
2 could have been useful, but luckily the UK's researchers are clever people and were able to put together a very good series of trials on the hoof using their expertise (as derided a quality as it is)
Yup and depending on how it was implemented, 4 also.


Of course, given that the Cabinet didn't bother reading exercise Cygnus report until well after I had read the leaked summary in the Guardian, it's a bit of a moot point.

Because I know people say that was for influenza, but it still had lots of relevant analyses and recommendations

Re: Why isn't the cover-up of Exercise Alice big news?

Posted: Sat Nov 27, 2021 9:30 pm
by raven
Covering up something that might make them look bad is so typical of this shower, I guess we're inured to it.

Besides, CYA after the fact is the least of it. The real outrage is that all these paper exercises weren't translated into actions. In fact, didn't the DHSC downgraded PPE reccomendations from the 'flu one so they didn't have to stockpile visors just to save money? And what did we have in 2020, a desperate need for visors met by amateur 3D printers.

Then there's the stuff about the American company who run the NHS PPE stockpile (cos why would we leave the NHS or PHE to run that themselves, why not outsource something so vital to the nation... but I digress) Some financial jiggery pokery & a dispute over moving to a new warehouse, iirc, meant they were caught on the back foot in 2020 and in such a mess the army had to step in to help out with distribution. Not really providing taxpayers with the service they paid for.