Doctor to Reveal Health Officials' Continual Denial That COVID is Airborne

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06 September 2024

As the COVID-19 Inquiry continues, a leading expert on aerosols will give evidence on how UK healthcare officials denied overwhelming scientific evidence that COVID-19 is airborne.

Dr Barry Jones, Chair of the COVID-19 Airborne Transmission Alliance (CATA), will provide testimony for Module 3 of the COVID-19 Inquiry, which is focused on healthcare systems during the pandemic.

Dr Jones will explain how the UK was “prepared for the wrong pandemic” – for a disease largely transmitted by droplets and touch. He will challenge the official assertion 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”.  He will argue that, as a result of this, billions of pounds were wasted on inappropriate PPE. 

CATA believes that the Infection Protection and Control (IPC) guidance that guided the pandemic response was flawed and did not consider advice from the government’s scientific experts. Dr Jones said, "those responsible for the IPC guidance failed our healthcare workers, our patients and our communities.” The guidance stated that large droplets and touch caused COVID-19 transmission and that respiratory protective equipment was only needed to protect against a small class of medical procedures, known as aerosol-generating procedures.

“The mental health crisis in the NHS and staff shortages all have their roots in the disregard for life and expertise that professionals experienced through the pandemic.”

–Kamini Gadhok

Former CEO of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and Vice Chair of CATA

IPC Cell Mystery

This guidance was produced by the IPC Cell, a response group formed at the start of the pandemic but was not part of the UK’s official planned pandemic infrastructure. CATA says that the IPC Cell, which was made up of still unknown individuals, refused to consider evidence from health professionals that deviated from the idea that COVID was not an airborne disease and therefore RPE was largely unnecessary for most healthcare workers – even those working at close quarters with infected patients.

“As a medical practitioner, I defy anyone to tell me that when you are resuscitating an infected patient or inserting a feeding tube which always elicits a cough, you are not going to be at risk of contracting that respiratory infection,” said Dr Jones. “Yet this is what the health officials are still telling telling [sic] us, despite our years of practical experience and the catastrophe that we were seeing unfolding before our eyes.”

“The way in which healthcare workers were abandoned to their fates and their professional knowledge was disregarded has left a scar on the UK’s healthcare system,” added Kamini Gadhok, former CEO of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and Vice Chair of CATA.

“The mental health crisis in the NHS and staff shortages all have their roots in the disregard for life and expertise that professionals experienced through the pandemic.”

Criticism of the Health and Safety Executive

CATA also feels that the Health and Safety Executive was not effectively engaged with healthcare systems during the pandemic. “Protections like RIDDOR (the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations), the reporting mechanism which provides employees with an official record of diseases acquired through their work, was largely abandoned in healthcare during the pandemic,” said David Osborn, member of the CATA Executive Team and Health and Safety expert. 

“The normal principles of health and safety protection that any worker can expect were simply not applied to healthcare workers – our most important national asset during a health emergency. Healthcare workers and employers were left exposed and unsupported. It seems that the HSE believe they are entitled to switch legally binding duties on and off at will. Health and Safety law exists for the benefit of workers, not for the convenience of the HSE as they appear to think.”

The public hearings for Module 3 of the COVID-19 Inquiry will begin on 9 September 2024.

Picture: a photograph of a person coughing into one hand, with their other arm outstretched towards the camera with their palm up. Image Credit: Unsplash

Article written by Ella Tansley | Published 06 September 2024

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