Project #192:
Exercise Pegasus: Red Team validation

The UK Government wants to learn lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and be ready for the next similar global emergency. This is done through conducting large exercises, such as Exercise Pegasus, which let ministers, central government, devolved nations, and regional services (hospital and social care services, police service) etc, practise how they would respond in a real-life emergency.

There are many people in the UK who suffer from long-term health conditions which can lead to worse outcomes when infected with viruses such as the corona virus. These are known as comorbidities. We will use GP data to find out broadly how many people suffer from different conditions (e.g., diabetes, heart disease, cancer) across England, and how less likely they were to survive infection during the COVID-19 pandemic than people with no underlying health conditions.

It is important that we have a realistic and current picture of how many people suffer from these conditions and where in the country they are for the pandemic exercise. This will make sure that we can test if there are the resources to properly support the needs of people with extra risks in the event of a future pandemic and make changes if we find that the current protocols and resources aren’t sufficient.