Downing Street Says » Brazilian President

Asked whether for further information about the bird flu discussions at Cabinet, the PMOS replied that it was a résumé of what we already knew, and of the uncertainties which surrounded the issue. The discussion was an attempt to sketch out the contingency planning to deal with any eventualities. It was clearly a very uncertain issue.

Asked if the contingency plans were from the Cabinet Office, the PMOS said it was not only a matter for the Cabinet Office, but rather, a variety of departments were looking at the issue on a contingency basis.
Asked if there had been any discussion on whether this was the right time to bring birds inside, the PMOS said there had not been.

Asked what departments were concerned, the PMOS said a variety, as the end, this was an issue which had multiple implications.

Asked if it could be assumed that DEFRA was involved, the PMOS said that of course people assume that DEFRA was involved!

Put that it seemed Ministers "hadn’t got a clue" about what was going on since everything seemed so uncertain, the PMOS said the question got the prize for the most spun question of the month, the PMOS then asked the journalist if bird flu had been transmitted from human to human? Could the journalist tell the PMOS what the impact of cold weather could have on migration patterns? If the journalist could, then he was a better man than any of the leading scientists in this country.

Asked what was the effect of cold weather on migration patterns, the PMOS said that it was a universally known fact that the weather did have an impact on migration.

Put that there was a very uncertain picture in that it was not known whether it could be transmitted human-to-human, the PMOS said that the uncertain picture was precisely the uncertainty that we had always said was there. What we did not know was whether it would mutate into human-to-human, therefore, the nature of any possible virus was not known.

Asked if Margaret Beckett had given a presentation to Cabinet, the PMOS said that there had been a discussion.

Asked if bird flu was "inevitable", the PMOS replied that as David King had said, the chances were clearly increasing, but it was not inevitable.

Asked what the reason for having a presentation on bird flu was, the PMOS said it was so that lobby could chase its tail needlessly for ten minutes, and that was the only reason they decided to do it today!
Asked again what was the reason, the PMOS said that it was an issue that given where we were, we had to continually review. There was no reason why it was discussed today other than the need to make sure that because it was an issue that did go across many departments, it was important that we continued to look at it in a cross-departmental way.

Asked if there had been any decisions to update contingency plans, the PMOS said there had not been any.

Asked if it had been discussed how it would affect Ministers, the PMOS said: no.

Put that Ministers would be given the medication Tamiflu", the PMOS said he did not know.

Asked if all the Cabinet would be taken up to a country house in Scotland in the event of an epidemic, the PMOS asked for people not to mention Scotland, as there was a sensitive rugby match coming up this weekend!!

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» Thursday, March 9, 2006

Brazilian President

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