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A damning independent report into Britain's management to the coronavirus situation determined that the actions were "too little, too late," declaring how enacting restrictions just a single week before could have prevented more than 23,000 lives.

Main Conclusions from the Inquiry

Documented across exceeding 750 documents spanning two reports, the results depict a consistent narrative showing hesitation, inaction as well as an evident inability to absorb lessons.

The description regarding the onset of the pandemic in the first months of 2020 is especially critical, calling February as "a month of inaction."

Ministerial Failures Highlighted

• It questions why Boris Johnson did not to convene one session of the government's Cobra crisis committee that month.
• Measures to the pandemic effectively paused over the mid-term vacation.
• In the second week in March, the circumstances was "little short of disastrous," with a lack of strategy, insufficient testing and therefore no understanding of the extent to which the virus was spreading.

What Could Have Been

Although acknowledging the fact that the decision to impose a lockdown had been unprecedented and exceptionally hard, taking other action to reduce the circulation of Covid more quickly could have meant that one may not have been necessary, or alternatively proved less lengthy.

Once a lockdown became unavoidable, the investigation stated, had it been imposed on March 16, modelling indicated this would have cut the number of fatalities across England in the first wave of Covid by almost half, equating to 23,000 deaths prevented.

The omission to appreciate the scale of the risk, and the need of response it necessitated, resulted in the fact that when the chance of a mandatory lockdown was first considered it had become too delayed and such measures were necessary.

Ongoing Failures

The investigation also highlighted that a number of of these failures – responding belatedly as well as downplaying the rate and consequences of the virus's transmission – were then repeated in the latter part of 2020, as measures were eased only to be late reintroduced in the face of infectious new strains.

It labels such repetition "unjustifiable," adding how the government failed to learn lessons during repeated outbreaks.

Final Count

The UK endured one of the most severe coronavirus epidemics in Europe, recording approximately 240,000 pandemic lives lost.

This report represents the second from the national investigation covering all aspects of the management as well as response of the pandemic, that began in previous years and is expected to continue into 2027.