Covid inquiry: Vaughan Gething says missing WhatsApps an “embarrassment”

Gething accepts there was inadequate preparation
for the wrong pandemic.

Government planning involved prepping for a flu pandemic – and
because Covid was a different virus “we went through PPE at a much faster
rate” and “some of the items weren’t fit for purpose”.

Gething told the inquiry “the preparation we thought
we had didn’t stand up as well as we thought it would in those early weeks”,
adding there was a “bridge to be gapped” between expectation and reality.

“So, in hindsight we weren’t as well
prepared as we could have been and we weren’t as well prepared as we thought we
were – and that’s not just in Wales but the rest of the UK,” Wales’ pandemic health minister says.

Asked if Welsh government was too slow in
early 2020 to recognise the pandemic emergency, Gething says “the
full recognition of the multi-agency nature of the response which was required”
came in the middle of February.

“But still not understanding the scale of
that, that still comes later,” he says.

“When it comes to the middle of
February onwards, I don’t think there’s any doubt that the Welsh government is
taking this seriously and having to move resources around rapidly while still
dealing with what’s happening in front of us with every day business.”

Gething says large parts of the normal
NHS in Wales being “switched off” from 13 March 2020 was a significant and
“extraordinary intervention”.