UK COVID-19 inquiry|28 May 2025

Dame Jenny Harries. Chief Executive, UK Health Security Agency.

Introduction

Professor Dame Jenny Harries is the Chief Executive of the UK Health Security Agency. She was made a Dame in the 2022 Queen’s New Year honours list for her outstanding contribution to public health. On 27 January 2025, Ms.Harries announced her forthcoming retirement from the post of CE of UKHSA. She intends to step down from the role at some point in the near future.

‘‘PHE was able to develop a specific PCR test for COVID-19 without any biological virus material.’’

-Paragraph 3.50 of statement

‘‘PHE isolated and grew the SARS-CoV-2 virus from the first UK diagnosed case, which provided essential control material for the expanded use of the PHE assay.’’

-Paragraph 3.51 of statement

‘‘UKHSA is committed to continuing to learn from the pandemic, including in relation to testing, case, contact and outbreak management, public health and social measures and health equity and in particular to those measures that can move towards "scientific pre-emption" of a pandemic.’’

-Paragraph 7.2 of statement ‘looking to the future’

Testimony highlights

• Contact tracing.

• Asymptomatic transmission ‘assumed’ in future outbreaks.

• ‘Case’ defintions.

‘‘Widespread testing and contact tracing has not historically been employed successfully or recommended in the management of influenza pandemics.’’

‘‘Almost forget the pathogen put those two at the front (digital infrastructure and asymptomatic testing) and the scenarios of the art of the possible in pandemic preparedness changes considerably.’’

‘‘You can see from the historic teaching for infectious disease management in large outbreaks like this is that you will change your defintion of case as the outbreak progresses and that’s exactly what happened through COVID.’’

Hospital to care home discharges

• Despite PPE and regular testing hospitals were not safe places for the most vulnerable.

• A negative test doesn’t mean no COVID. Isolation should still be used.

• Isolation the most important protective measure. See Lancet study.

‘‘Staying in hospital if you are elderly and frail is a very dangerous place to be.’’

‘‘Even if you have had a test and it is negative…it is only negative at the point the test is taken.’’

‘‘Testing is not the main intervention for keeping an individual safe.’’

Lockdowns

• NPI’s stop flu but not COVID.

‘‘If you have COVID and everybody locks down you won’t have the flu..potentially.’’

Missed opportunities

• UK should strive to emulate the Asian/African response.

‘‘UKHSA works very closely with Africa CDC we actually have somebody embedded in that country and we actually have two teams.’’

‘‘Importantly as we go forward vector borne disease WILL come to the UK.’’

‘‘We have to learn from other countries in our preparation.’’

Statement highlights

End