zlacker

China responded because they had already suffered from a previous outbreak of SARS.

They probably were aware the risks of a highly infectious disease and possibly had contingencies drawn up for this very thing.

The UK had planned for what would happen during a global outbreak and the Conservative government scrapped them and 140,000 people died.

>>adamau+(OP)
The Threats, Hazards, Resilience and Contingency Committee (THRCC) was scrapped by Boris Johnson in July 2019, and had previously been "mothballed" by Theresa May to focus on Brexit efforts.

Whether the existence of a group of 15 MPs including such luminaries as Michael Gove, Matt Hancock and Gavin Williamson would have made a marked difference is not so obvious.

Existing plans were not scrapped and some believe using these plans actually was a big factor in the lacklustre initial response. The plans were too specific on what had come before (SARS most recently) and didn't allow accommodation of the differences of covid. It took a notable amount of time to change direction.

I'm sure there's plenty of blame to go around if one was inclined to do so, but I don't think disbanding one committee (despite its prescient name) was particularly notable.