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The government’s plans for dealing with Covid were “unclear” with some local health officials only hearing about policy changes from TV news conferences, the Covid Inquiry has heard.
Prof Jim McManus, president of the Association of Directors of Public Health (ADPH), said communication from central government had been “lacking”.
A national system for tracing infected contacts was set up from scratch, instead of building on local teams which already existed, he said.
“For the first few months of the pandemic, there were parts of central government that did not have a mailing list to reach out to directors of public health so they physically couldn’t contact us,” he added.
The ADPH represents more than 160 directors of public health across the UK who work on health protection and emergency response, often alongside the police, fire service and other officials.