That's my whole point @juggyty Apologies if I'm not making myself clear.
No one was prepping for "Covid" ahead of Covid arriving. Planning for disasters can never start with the actual event, by their very nature. The thing to do is to have a grasp of what might need to be done, at different scales
Evacuating the site while "work continues uninterrupted" is a pretty straightforward scenarios to be prepared for. Lots of systems which had been tested over the years, such as text messages to tell everyone to "keep away" from offices and sites were not needed this time round.
No one thinks it was a waste having those systems in place. In recovery from other kinds of disaster, they could have been essential.
We probably all have spent a bit of time thinking about what they would do 'if', especially when they have children and other dependents. Teenagers tend to keep it as 'phone parents' and consider missing the last train a disaster. As we get older and have more responsibilities, it makes sense to have a few more options at our fingertips.
Once you are employing people, providing a work place for them, you would like to think that someone had thought through what might go wrong and who would do what. Simple example, fire drills to check we can evacuate a burning building. It's not rocket science. You do a fire drill every so often to make sure it works. If it's a mess, you do it again more frequently.
What you don't do is wait til you smell fire to start thinking about it. Similarly, you don't need different drills for fire, bomb scares and chemical spills. If people are prepared, you just ring the bell and the building is evacuated.
You need a combination of robust and effective plans plus an agility to respond to actual events. That's when you see real leadership.
Saying 'well no one told us it was going to be a global pandemic' doesn't really cut it.
Choosing people to be part of your leadership team based in their unquestioning loyalty rather than those who will challenge your ideas runs the risk that no one challenges any ideas floated in Cabinet. That challenge is required so that only the really sensible, practical ideas make it out to the public.
Without that challenge, you end up with "Groupthink", announcing initiatives which have to be countermanded almost as soon as the public hear about them.
Anyone saying bless them, they are doing their best, none expected a pandemic, are setting the bar really very low indeed for politicians who after all, offer their services as our leaders and ask us to support them.