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A harsh independent investigation regarding the United Kingdom's handling of the Covid emergency determined that the response were "insufficient and delayed," stating how enacting restrictions just seven days earlier could have spared more than twenty thousand lives.

Main Conclusions of the Report

Outlined through over 750 documents across two volumes, the results depict a clear picture showing hesitation, lack of action as well as a seeming failure to absorb from mistakes.

The description about the beginning of Covid-19 at the beginning of 2020 is particularly critical, calling February as "a month of inaction."

Ministerial Errors Noted

• It raises questions about the reasons why Boris Johnson did not to chair one meeting of the Cobra response team in that period.
• The response to Covid effectively stopped throughout the half-term holiday week.
• In the second week in March, the circumstances had become "nearly calamitous," with no proper plan, no testing and thus no understanding of the extent to which Covid had spread.

What Could Have Been

While acknowledging that the move to impose a lockdown had been unprecedented and exceptionally hard, taking further steps to curb the transmission of coronavirus sooner might have resulted in that one may not have been necessary, or alternatively have been less lengthy.

When a lockdown was inevitable, the investigation noted, if it had been introduced on March 16, projections suggested this could have lowered the number of fatalities across England in the earliest phase of Covid by almost half, representing over 20,000 deaths prevented.

The inability to understand the scale of the risk, or the immediacy of response it demanded, resulted in the fact that by the time the option of a mandatory lockdown was first considered it was already too delayed so that restrictions became necessary.

Repeated Mistakes

The investigation also pointed out how several of these failures – reacting too slowly as well as underestimating the pace together with consequences of the pandemic's progression – were then repeated subsequently in 2020, when restrictions were eased and subsequently belatedly restored due to spreading variants.

The report calls this "unjustifiable," noting how officials were unable to absorb experience during successive phases.

Final Count

The UK experienced among the deadliest coronavirus crises across Europe, amounting to about 240,000 virus-related fatalities.

The inquiry constitutes the latest by the national investigation regarding every element of the handling and response of the pandemic, which began in previous years and is due to proceed through 2027.