Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
Any future pandemic planning should include the impact on the economy Stormont The minister has said.
DUP MLA Diane Dodds, who served as economy minister from January 2020 to June 2021, also stressed the importance of data as she gave evidence to the UK Covid-19 inquiry on Wednesday.
Food security and connectivity, with only one flight a day in the region during the pandemic, were major concerns, he said.
“The impact on airports, the impact on communications and relationships for families and so on was very severe,” he told the inquest in London.
“They were really huge concerns and we had specific industries northern ireland We were very concerned about it, like aerospace.
“The impact of the pandemic on the aerospace industry in Northern Ireland was very, very big and took a long time to recover from, and while I think they were flagged as concerns, I think I’m always a little bit troubled by the fact that it didn’t take enough action, because when you live in Northern Ireland, connectivity with the rest of the United Kingdom is a big issue.”
Mrs Dodds said the pandemic modeling had focused on health, while “assuming a business-as-usual approach in the context of the economy”, which had led to plans being rolled out “in almost real time” to support businesses during the lockdown.
In the context of a pandemic, “we didn’t know how it would progress and how long it would last”, which was “quite difficult and important”.
“I think we need some kind of response that allows us to plan for something much more significant than that,” he said.
“I don’t think anyone could have imagined the pandemic and the way it spread. It was one of those incredible times to be in government.”
He added: “I haven’t been in the Northern Ireland Executive since 2021, and I’m not sure whether some of those discussions would have taken place, but there certainly needs to be pandemic planning for the future.
“It is not just about health, but it is also about the impact on the economy, the impact on employment, the impact on long-term unemployment that this has caused.
“And I think we need to understand and learn the lessons from what’s happened and understand from the data we have how to make it work better for the future.”
Mrs Dodds concluded her evidence by emphasizing the importance of the data.
“The issue of data, the issue of access to data that helps us move more quickly, is really very important,” he said.
“We saw that in the absence of accurate data, things could go wrong, or they could go slower than necessary, and I think that was a big lesson for us, because we had to find it in all kinds of different places.
“I hope we will learn and plan, so that some of these things will not be new or unexpected to us in the future, because the most important thing is that we can react quickly to anything.” God Don’t do it, this can happen.”