Matt Hancock’s worries about the coronavirus don’t go far enough – now is the time for action

“Coronavirus: the government and the NHS are well prepared to deal with this virus” runs the slogan in the current official public health campaign.

It offers some useful tips about washing hands and for returning travellers, and is designed to reassure the public. Thus far, despite the 13 people tested as positive for coronavirus, and the running commentaries on outbreaks in Tenerife, Japan, Austria, Croatia, Italy and elsewhere, there is, as yet, no widespread panic.

There was a brief fuss about the so-called “super-carrier” in Sussex, some schools have taken the precaution of closing down, and some eccentrics are choosing to wear (ineffective) face masks. But that, so far, has been the extent of the public reaction. Although Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has professed himself “worried” by the situation – understandably – it seems to be under control. In the commons, when Mr Hancock gave an update on the position, the mood was calm, and the opposition spokesperson, Jonathan Ashworth, was broadly supportive. Covid-19 has not yet, so to speak, gone viral as a political issue.

But is that right? Are the government and the NHS well prepared to deal with this virus? As The Independent reports, the NHS is already suffering from intense pressure on bed space, and it is difficult to believe that the NHS will indeed be able to deal with a rapid escalation in cases. The new special unit to be established at Heathrow airport, and the various centres being used for quarantine can cope with the present dimensions of the crisis; but the question arises as to how well they would be able to deal with, say, 10 or 100 times as many people who are sick or potentially sick? It would be like the annual flu crisis, but on vastly larger, more chaotic scale.

Mr Hancock stated to MPs that the government, advised by the chief medical officer, is “not yet convinced it will be a pandemic”. Which is not the same as ruling it out. The World Health Organisation agrees with the health department: “Using the word pandemic now does not fit the facts, but it may certainly cause fear. What we see are epidemics in different parts of the world affecting different countries in different ways.”

“Epidemics in different parts of the world” is not exactly reassuring, either, and it sounds to the layperson like the precondition for a pandemic, and one that the UK, with its transport hubs and its crowded cities, would be unable to resist.

So the question still stands, unanswered: what are the contingency plans the government, and local authorities, are now taking to try to protect the public in the event of a UK epidemic, whether part of a pandemic or not?

No one could reasonably expect the NHS to create thousands upon thousands of bed spaces, let alone staff, to meet such a demand for “supported isolation”. Yet there are measures that could be taken as part of what Mr Hancock calls his “Contain; Delay; Research; Mitigate” strategy.

It may be that the government and the NHS will not be able completely to deal with an epidemic of this virus, just as no health system anywhere in the world will be able to – but that does still mean that more can be done now to demonstrate that the government has the imagination to envisage the enormity of what might happen, uncertain though it may be. The financial markets have already decided that the risks may be small, but the scale of the downside – in human suffering and economic damage – is colossal. Mr Hancock is right to be worried, and he needs to do more and be seen to do more to convert his worries into action.