In the last few weeks I have come to regard Dr Bharat Pankhania, an expert in communicable diseases, as a kind of trusted friend. Recently he has been appearing regularly on the regional programme I watch, BBC Points West, which is produced in the city of Bristol not far from my home. The doctor has a very engaging warm manner. He routinely despatches sound and accessible practical advice in answer to viewers’ questions about the coronavirus.
Yesterday I discovered the doctor lives in my home city of Bath. He is also a local councillor for the area of Combe Down, on the top of a nearby hill where I regularly go hiking.
Dr Pankhania is now a Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Exeter Medical School. He has extensive experience in working in public health, especially in the control of communicable diseases. So he knows his stuff.
I was intrigued to see the doctor take part in yesterday’s first edition of the Covid Report – a citizens-led attempt to hold the UK government to account. He appeared alongside three professors and the ex-chair of the British parliamentary health committee.
In this appearance, which has been circulated via a video on youtube, Dr Pankhania adopted a much tougher tone than I have seen before. He said he was baffled at the level of unpreparedness in the UK over the last three months. He couldn’t understand why more hadn’t been done in testing for the virus in the community. And why we had not seen the setting up of sustained and extensive local contact tracing as practised in China, South Korea and other Asian countries.
During the programme there was criticism of what was seen as the government’s over-reliance on modellers and behavioural scientists, and not taking enough account of public health experts.
Some may see an initiative such as the Covid report as being somewhat disloyal when the whole nation should be pulling together to tackle the virus. Others will say that we live in a democracy and our government’s actions should be closely examined so they can be improved where necessary.
Why not judge the programme for yourself? You can watch it here.
globalwindow 