The article lists what happens. If you combine it with the wikipedia article ...

1) government facility is visited by the WHO. The report about this says that it's measures to contain the disease are insufficient. Lab is scheduled for closure in 6 months, which is provided as a reason to take no action.

And ... the lab infects one an employee of the same university (but working in a very different department) with a fatal disease, smallpox. The employee was a medical photographer, nothing to do with the lab itself, but works above the lab (not even directly above the lab). Looking at the place on google maps, I'd say at least 50 other people worked above the lab as well.

2) another government doctor misdiagnoses the disease

Failure point 1: Apparently the government sees no reason to have facilities that work with fatal diseases provide medical examinations for it's employees, given the special situation.

Instead, no doubt much cheaper, they just assume nothing ever goes wrong.

Just so we're clear: if this disease breaks out for real and reassumes it's former form, a BILLION people WILL die. Millions in Britain, billions worldwide. But not checking, I'm sure, is cheaper.

3) Without changing the diagnosis, nor providing a reason for it, the government incarcerates the patient in an isolation hospital.

4) By shear and total chance, upon the entry examination in the isolation hospital, an old doctor who has diagnosed such patients before recognizes the disease. This is pure and total luck, and mostly a result of the age of the doctor that just happened to be on duty. Had that doctor been a new hire, we would never have known about this outbreak (because they aren't trained to diagnose smallpox, as it's eradicated).

5) The government lab where she worked was only informed of the seriousness of what had happened ... by the press. Clearly, keeping tabs on employees with mysterious illnesses is not the job of government labs that investigate fatal diseases, instead the government and these labs count on the press to prevent millions of deaths.

6) Once they realize what is happening, they immediately incarcerate everyone they can find 500 people total. "Placed in quarantine". Except, of course, the people that are most likely to be infected: the people from the lab itself. No doubt this was a reasonable assessment done in the service of the community ... as to why no member of the government staff itself was thought to be infected, I'm sure there's a great explanation, and it's not just "it's a necessary, but cruel and inhumane process that we don't apply to our own people".

... FIVE HUNDRED people total.

The government did not see the need to provide food for at least some of the people they locked up in quarantine. Luckily, said people "forced" their way out after SEVERAL DAYS. This was 2 families, including children.

7) The process of quarantine itself kills the father of the person that fell ill. I'm sure this has nothing to do with how those people are treated, and of course it did not affect the government's decision to have it's own people not subjected to it, despite those government employees being by far the most likely to have been exposed.

The government immediately declares it critical that the corpse is not investigated, due to the risk that it had been infected with smallpox (not, I'm sure, because they would have found bruising from the incarceration the government just put him through, right ?)

8) The government employee responsible for isolating the virus kills himself. Leaves a note: "I am sorry to have misplaced the trust which so many of my friends and colleagues have placed in me and my work."

Needless to say, he did so at home, not in quarantine. No mention made of special measures taken to check if the corpse was infected (viruses, including smallpox, can spread from dead people for up to two weeks after death). If he had been infected, would the disease have spread ?

9) Employee dies.

10) Despite the lab being the only credible source of the disease (it's eradicated), the government absolved itself fully of any responsibility for what happened when the husband asked the police for help.

She leaves behind a husband, Joseph, who was incarcerated for 2 months and not allowed contact with his wife during this ordeal. His wife, a medical photographer, left for work, and he never saw her again, not even after she died, as he wasn't allowed to attend her cremation.

When he came back to his home, he found it fumigated.

Needless to say, the government decided there was no need to fumigate the facilities KNOWN TO HAVE VIRUS PARTICLES IN THEM. After intervention from the WHO they do it anyway, 2 months later, after thousands of people passed through the facilities.

Eventually, due to intervention of a trade union, after years of legal action, the government pays £26,500 in compensation. Due to normal government regulations, the trade union carries all legal costs (which are likely to exceed the awarded amount).

Sources: the article and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_smallpox_outbreak_in_the_...

After all this, statements by the government were made:

"Birmingham University claims it is being made subject of malicious claims that Bedson's lab was not safe. 'This river of hate that someone is pouring out is absolute nonsense,' says press officer Martin Cheesewright."

Another, VERY public statement, is the "investigation". Reginald Arthur Shooter, a (very old at the time) microbiologist, lead the investigation, found nothing wrong, and defended this in the court where the government absolved itself of any wrongdoing (and as mentioned in this thread didn't explain how the infection occurred) and was awarded the rank of commander in the order of the British Empire at the Queen's "Birthday Honors".

Long live the queen ! And .... those that her organizations infect with deadly diseases ...

(the queen is head of state, and thus the ultimate boss of everyone identified as "the government" above)