ask each of you to give your name and your affiliation. We don't all know each other.

It's lockdown. It's another Zoom call. And I'm going to start with Anthony.

Hi, I'm Anthony Kostar. I'm a professor of global health.

But this time, it's filled with some of the top scientists in the country

analyzing the strategy for tackling coronavirus.

That is the first item on the agenda the business of getting out of the lockdown.

But unlike the official scientific advisory group for emergencies or sage, no government ministers are listening.

There's a longer term potential for a classic second wave of the sort we saw, say in the

1918 Spanish flu.

This is the independent in the 1918 Spanish flu.

This is the independent sage and for two months they've been live streaming their advice to anyone who will tune in. As most of England eases out of lockdown, what do these experts make of the government's

plans? You're listening to stories of our times from the Times and the Sunday Times.

I'm Manveen Rana.

Today, the former chief scientist Sir David King

on his concerns about the pandemic strategy.

We predicted that a virus of this kind would emerge somewhere in the world before 2030 just looking at the probabilities and that if it emerged anywhere in the world it would take

only three months to be in every country in the world because of air travel.

That's Sir David King. He was the chief scientific advisor to the UK government between 2000 and 2007.

In that time, he had to deal with several health emergencies including foot and mouth disease

the 2003 SARS outbreak and the spread of Bovine TB.

So I think I was alert immediately.

I don't suppose you predicted how it would end too.

...