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An damning independent investigation concerning the UK's handling to the coronavirus situation has concluded which the response was "too little, too late," declaring how enacting confinement measures just one week sooner could have prevented in excess of twenty thousand deaths.

Main Conclusions of the Inquiry

Outlined in more than seven hundred and fifty documents across two reports, the findings depict a clear picture of procrastination, lack of action and a seeming inability to understand from experience.

The narrative concerning the start of Covid-19 in the first months of 2020 has been described as notably harsh, calling February as being "a month of inaction."

Ministerial Shortcomings Emphasized

• It raises questions about the reasons why Boris Johnson neglected to lead one meeting of the government's Cobra response team that month.
• The response to the pandemic essentially paused over the school break.
• In the second week of March, the situation was "little short of catastrophic," with no proper plan, insufficient testing and therefore little understanding of how far the coronavirus was spreading.

Possible Outcome

While recognizing that the decision to implement restrictions had been unprecedented and exceptionally hard, taking other action to curb the transmission of Covid more quickly could have meant such measures might have been avoided, or at least have been shorter.

By the time confinement became unavoidable, the investigation stated, if implemented enforced on 16 March, modelling suggested that would have lowered the total of lives lost within England in the earliest phase of Covid by around half, representing over 20,000 fatalities avoided.

The inability to understand the scale of the threat, or the need of response it demanded, meant the fact that once the chance of a mandatory lockdown was first discussed it had become too late so that a lockdown had become unavoidable.

Repeated Mistakes

The inquiry further noted that many of these mistakes – reacting belatedly as well as downplaying the pace and effect of Covid’s spread – were later repeated in the latter part of 2020, as controls were removed and subsequently belatedly reintroduced due to infectious mutations.

The report calls this "unacceptable," noting how the government failed to learn lessons during repeated phases.

Total Impact

The United Kingdom endured one of the most severe pandemic crises within Europe, with approximately two hundred forty thousand pandemic lives lost.

The inquiry represents the second from the national review into each part of the handling as well as management to the coronavirus, which started previously and is due to continue through 2027.