This morning’s Western Mail reveals the existence of a secret Welsh Government document that planned to bury up to 40,000 Welshmen and women in mass graves. Fortunately, it is a contingency plan in the event that swine flu had got out of hand last year and it was never needed.
The report estimated that in a worst-case scenario the Welsh death toll from pandemic swine flu could be close to 40,000. It envisaged mass graves, round-the-clock cremations and express funerals all being be used if required:
The plan was drawn up last year by the Wales Resilience Forum, which exists to prepare the nation for disasters, just weeks before the first swine flu cases were reported in Mexico.
It sets out how the Assembly Government, working with the health service, local authorities and the emergency services would respond to a pandemic.
As was demonstrated by last year’s scare, it is impossible to predict the impact a pandemic could have. In Wales, there were 665 laboratory-confirmed cases of swine flu and 28 deaths.
Nevertheless, the previously unreleased report estimates that a future pandemic could claim up to 37,074 victims out of a Welsh population of 2.9 million, based on half the nation becoming infected, and a 2.5% fatality rate.
In Cardiff, there would normally be 840 deaths over a typical 15-week period but, in the worst-case scenario used in the Assembly Government document, this could rise up to 3,970 additional deaths during a pandemic. According to the predictions, Rhondda Cynon Taff would have the second-highest death toll (2,924), followed by Swansea (2,838) and Carmarthenshire (2,225).
South West Wales AM Peter Black, who was Liberal Democrat health spokesman at the time, revealed he was aware of the plans to deal with mass fatalities in Wales.
“It was important that this was not made public last year as it would have caused panic and alarm, but clearly the Assembly Government had to plan for the worst-case scenario,” he said.
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