🔗 Share this article

A critical independent investigation concerning the UK's handling to the coronavirus emergency has found which the actions were "insufficient and delayed," stating that imposing restrictions even one week sooner would have spared in excess of 20,000 lives.

Key Findings of the Inquiry

Outlined in more than 750 documents covering two parts, the results paint an unmistakable narrative showing delay, inaction as well as an apparent inability to absorb from mistakes.

The account about the onset of Covid-19 in the first months of 2020 has been described as notably brutal, calling the month of February as being "a lost month."

Official Errors Emphasized

• It questions why the UK leader neglected to convene any gathering of the emergency emergency committee that month.
• The response to the virus largely stopped during the half-term holiday week.
• By the second week in March, the state of affairs was described as "nearly disastrous," with inadequate preparation, insufficient testing and therefore no understanding regarding the extent to which the virus had spread.

Possible Outcome

Although recognizing that the move to enforce confinement was without precedent and exceptionally hard, implementing additional measures to curb the circulation of the virus more quickly would have allowed a lockdown could have been prevented, or alternatively have been of shorter duration.

Once restrictions was inevitable, the investigation stated, had it been imposed on 16 March, projections showed that could have reduced the total of fatalities in England in the first wave of the virus by around half, equating to twenty-three thousand fatalities avoided.

The failure to recognize the extent of the danger, and the need for measures it required, resulted in the fact that when the option of a mandatory lockdown was first considered it had become too late and a lockdown became inevitable.

Ongoing Failures

The report further noted that a number of of these errors – responding with delay as well as underestimating the rate and consequences of the pandemic's progression – were later repeated later in 2020, when controls were eased and subsequently delayed reintroduced because of infectious new strains.

The report calls this "unjustifiable," noting how the government were unable to learn lessons over repeated phases.

Total Impact

The United Kingdom endured among the most severe pandemic epidemics within Europe, recording around 240 thousand pandemic lives lost.

This report is the second by the ongoing review into all aspects of the management as well as management of the pandemic, which started previously and is due to proceed until 2027.