British military draw up emergency coronavirus contingency plans

On Thursday the British Army General Sir Nicholas Carter visited number 10 Downing Street to discuss emergency contingency planning.

Ministry of Defence (MoD) and military personnel will be stationed at 38 “local resilience forums” to form emergency contingency plans.

A MoD source said, “There will be one military planner in each local resilience forum. The military is used to dealing with a crisis more so than other agencies.”

Military planners have years of experience in dealing with any crisis as they normally dispatched to war zones or other dangerous countries and map out contingency plans all the time.

Local resilience forums (LRFs), plan for localised incidents and “catastrophic emergencies” across the UK that includes councils, police and emergency services.

This week the communities secretary Robert Jenrick launched a taskforce to strengthen plans to tackle the outbreak of coronavirus.

Jenrick said, “We all have a part to play in managing the spread of coronavirus and I am working to ensure local partners are fully equipped to play their part, too.

“With extensive experience, the new taskforce will provide LRFs with the capability and expertise to respond quickly and effectively.”

The British Army could be deployed to key sites across the UK such as nuclear power stations and parliament, to help free up police.

Boris Johnson have announced on Thursday that the whole of the “UK is now officially in the delay phase.” The government has advised that overseas school trips should now be cancelled.

The UK government’s chief scientific officer, Sir Patrick Vallance said at a press conference in Downing Street has said “it is most likely five to ten thousand  people are already infected in the UK with coronavirus.”

Sir Patrick said that we are following a similar trajectory to that of Italy, in terms of numbers and the peak could be 10 to 14 weeks away.

The prime minister said this disease is more dangerous than the common flu and “more families are going to lose loved ones before their time,” he added this is the “worst public health crisis in a generation.”