UK concludes biggest pandemic simulation with virus targeting children

This autumn, the UK conducted Exercise Pegasus, the country’s biggest pandemic simulation in nearly a decade and its first Tier 1 national emergency exercise since Covid-19. Concluding last month, it involved ministers, all devolved nations, COBRA activation and every major government department.Participants faced a fictional novel strain of enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) that originated on the imaginary southeast Asian island of Musiyana after a food festival.

Unlike Covid-19, the simulated virus primarily killed infants, children and teenagers, causing respiratory failure, brain swelling and occasional paralysis.