🔗 Share this article Restrictions Seven Days Earlier Would Have Saved Over 20,000 Lives, Covid Inquiry Determines An damning independent report regarding the United Kingdom's response of the pandemic situation has found that the actions were "inadequate and belated," stating that implementing confinement measures even seven days before might have saved over twenty thousand deaths. Primary Results of the Inquiry Outlined in exceeding seven hundred and fifty documents covering two volumes, the results paint an unmistakable narrative of procrastination, failure to act as well as an evident failure to learn from experience. The description regarding the onset of the pandemic in early 2020 is especially harsh, calling the month of February as being "a month of inaction." Ministerial Errors Emphasized The report questions the reasons why the then prime minister neglected to convene any meeting of the Cobra response team in that period. Measures to Covid largely paused during the half-term holiday week. In the second week of that March, the state of affairs was "little short of calamitous," due to a lack of plan, no testing and therefore no clear picture regarding how far the virus had spread. Possible Outcome Although admitting that the choice to implement restrictions proved to be unprecedented as well as extremely challenging, implementing additional measures to slow the spread of Covid earlier would have allowed a lockdown could have been prevented, or alternatively been of shorter duration. When restrictions became unavoidable, the inquiry authors noted, if it had been introduced on 16 March, modelling suggested this might have lowered the number of fatalities across England in the earliest phase of Covid by around half, equating to twenty-three thousand deaths prevented. The inability to appreciate the extent of the risk, and the need of response it required, resulted in that once the option of enforced restrictions was first considered it was already too late so that such measures were inevitable. Recurring Errors The report further noted that a number of of the same mistakes – responding with delay as well as downplaying the rate and impact of the pandemic's progression – were later repeated in the latter part of 2020, when controls were eased and then delayed reimposed because of infectious new strains. It calls such repetition "unacceptable," noting how the government failed to learn lessons over multiple waves. Final Count Britain experienced one of the deadliest coronavirus crises across Europe, amounting to around 240 thousand virus-related lives lost. This report constitutes the second from the national review regarding each part of the management and response to the coronavirus, that started two years ago and is scheduled to run into 2027.