Press release courtesy of the British Occupational Hygiene Society (BOHS)
Next week public hearings commence for Module 3 of the COVID-19 Inquiry, with a focus on the experience of healthcare during the pandemic. An eminent medic will take the stand on September 12th at the COVID-19 Inquiry to give testimony of how UK healthcare officials have systematically denied overwhelming scientific evidence that COVID-19 is airborne.
Dr Barry Jones chairs the COVID-19 Airborne Transmission Alliance (CATA) which is a Core Participant in the UK COVID-19 Inquiry. The Alliance includes professional associations representing 65,000 healthcare workers as well as individual experts. Since 2020, CATA’s membership have been seeking to persuade UK Health Officials to align national guidance to the scientific facts about how the disease is transmitted and how healthcare workers need to be protected from infection.
He will also challenge official assertions that healthcare workers did not need respiratory protective equipment when working close to infected patients or in poorly ventilated areas, except in an arbitrary set of situations. This position reveals the startling fact that since the outset of the pandemic, and despite all the evidence, health officials in the UK stubbornly continue to deny airborne transmission of the disease.
A consortium of healthcare professional bodies, representing 65,000 healthcare workers, has drawn depressing conclusions from the evidence given during Module 3 of the UK COVID-19 Inquiry. The Module considers the experience of healthcare during the pandemic and heard from scientific experts, patients, healthcare workers and from healthcare leaders.
The COVID-19 Airborne Transmission Alliance or CATA came together early in the pandemic to provide scientific evidence which challenge officials’ stated view that the virus was not capable of being spread by the airborne route, which would have required employers to provide respiratory protective equipment such as FFP3 masks. CATA has been a core participant in the Module 3 Inquiry and provided substantial evidence about the science, but also the bizarre behaviour of healthcare bureaucrats.
“Having followed the evidence in detail, it seems that those who had leadership roles during the pandemic, many of whom have been promoted to even more senior positions and rewarded with national honours, care less for science than they did for the lives of healthcare workers,” says Dr Barry Jones, Chair of CATA and an eminent medic. “They have taken the stand and asked the Inquiry to believe ideas that offend against common sense, let alone science.”
CATA has consistently pointed out the mass of scientific evidence that shows while diseases can be spread by a combination of inhaling airborne particles and being infected by droplets or contact with infected surfaces, COVID-19 has a significant dominant airborne component. CATA’s contentions have been supported by the experts commissioned by the Inquiry, are now no longer denied by the majority of healthcare leaders in the UK and are supported by international organisations including WHO and CDC.
Shockingly, evidence from the most senior health officials and experts in infection prevention and control confirm that they deem that protecting against droplets and aerosols is an either/or choice.
“It’s a bit like saying that your house can be damaged by fire or flood, but your insurance company saying that you can only pick one to be protected against,” commented Dr Barry Jones.
Rather than accepting that difficult decisions needed to be made because of lack of supply of PPE, senior healthcare leaders have taken the view that specially designed PPE might not have worked anyway, so it was not needed. The Inquiry has heard evidence that there is no plan to stockpile PPE for future pandemics or to have a national supply, despite a global shortage costing the UK millions and resulting in illness and deaths for hundreds of healthcare workers, not to mention almost a quarter of a million UK citizens
The Inquiry has heard of continuing confusion about who was responsible for making critical decisions about how the scientific evidence was used to inform guidance for protecting healthcare workers and patients. The Chief Executive of the Health Security Agency, who had a critical role in providing public answers on COVID-19 transmission and decision-making during the pandemic told the Inquiry that she was in those meetings because of her chairing skills and was not an expert in viruses.
The Chair of the Infection Prevention and Control Cell, Lisa Ritchie, who wrote the guidance all healthcare workers had to follow as well as being a co-author of the guidance on the use of FFP3s in healthcare also gave evidence. She stated her continued belief that COVID-19 was spread by droplets and that loose-fitting surgical masks provide the similar protection as specially designed FFP3s which are mandated for high risk activities by her own guidance.
“The most disturbing evidence heard at the Inquiry was the fact that, at the very height of the pandemic in December 2020, Ritchie and the IPC Cell ignored the expert advice and representations being made by Public Health England” says David Osborn, CATA’s Health and Safety consultant.
“Public Health England were the designated ‘lead authority’ for the UK in time of a pandemic emergency. The Inquiry’s lawyers pointed out that Dr Colin Brown, one of PHE’s top experts, was urging the IPC Cell to take a more precautionary approach, but was seemingly ignored.”
“Evidence from very senior figures who are going to be responsible for planning for future pandemics is chilling,” says Ms Kamini Gadhok MBE, the CATA Executive member who was CEO of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists through the pandemic. “It’s perfectly understandable that there were difficult choices to make during the height of the COVID-19 crisis. What is incomprehensible is that officials are wedded to scientific and practice positions which have been totally discredited and which failed. When listening to their evidence, it is clear that they are clinging onto their positions, both in terms of jobs and viewpoints, despite them being untenable.”
Speech and language therapists attempted to ensure that children were helped to develop speech, language and communication skills during the isolation of the pandemic, but were denied protection against airborne infections with appropriate RPE not being available when going into schools.
“Viewpoints like saying a tight-fitting, purpose-designed respirator is no more effective that a “flimsy bit of plastic” offend against common sense,” Kamini explains. “The idea that you don’t rule out airborne transmission as a means by which a disease is spread, but that you don’t factor it into your precautions is blatantly foolish.”
CATA is particularly disappointed that healthcare workers during the pandemic did not benefit from the basic protections that the law provides under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health. These legal rules require employers to use recognised respiratory protective equipment like FFP3s, rather than surgical masks (FRSMs) to control exposure to inhaled risks and to provide the best level of protection available.
“Jenny Harries gave evidence to suggest that, despite her not being an expert, in her view FFP3s would only give slightly better protection than FRSMs,” comments Professor Kevin Bampton, member of the CATA Executive and Chief Executive of the British Occupational Hygiene Society, “In the contexts of thousands of healthcare professionals getting ill, resulting in Long COVID and hundreds dying, even that slight benefit may still have saved lives. It is extraordinary to hear the head of the body that aims to protect our health security dismiss the value of saving even one life, where this is not just an opportunity, but a legal requirement.”
The need for immediate action cannot be understated. It is unacceptable for governments across the UK to be passive when current IPC guidance still does not reflect the scientific evidence on airborne transmission and clarity on appropriate respiratory protective equipment. In the face of ongoing risks to the lives and health of both patients and healthcare workers along with health and safety law, we do not understand the rationale for the reluctance to make changes until the Inquiry recommendations are published. As a result, CATA has asked the inquiry chair to consider an interim statement insisting on revision of current IPC guidance to remove inconsistent and misleading mandatory instructions which restrict precautions to protect the health of workers.
CATA members will mark the end of Module 3 with a visit to the COVID-19 memorial wall in remembrance of their friends and colleagues impacted by the policies that they have been challenging for the past four and half years.
For further information on CATA and its Inquiry submissions see Doctor to take the stand at COVID-19 Inquiry to expose UK officials | BAPEN
