Confinement a Week Sooner Would Have Saved 23,000 Deaths, Covid Report Finds
An critical official report concerning the United Kingdom's response of the coronavirus crisis has found which the reaction was "too little, too late," noting how imposing a lockdown even one week sooner might have prevented over 23,000 deaths.
Primary Results from the Report
Documented across over 750 sections covering two reports, the results paint a consistent picture of procrastination, inaction as well as an evident incapacity to learn lessons.
The account concerning the beginning of Covid-19 in early 2020 is notably critical, calling the month of February as "a wasted month."
Government Errors Emphasized
- It raises questions about why the then prime minister neglected to lead any meeting of the emergency response team in that period.
- Measures to the virus essentially paused throughout the mid-term vacation.
- In the second week in March, the situation was "nearly calamitous," due to a lack of strategy, insufficient testing and therefore no understanding about the degree to which the virus had circulated.
Potential Impact
Even though admitting the fact that the move to impose a lockdown had been unprecedented as well as exceptionally hard, implementing additional measures to curb the circulation of the virus more quickly might have resulted in that one might have been avoided, or at least have been of shorter duration.
By the time restrictions became unavoidable, the inquiry authors stated, had it been enforced on March 16, estimates indicated this might have cut the total of lives lost within England during the initial wave of the virus by almost half, representing over 20,000 fatalities avoided.
The failure to recognize the extent of the danger, and the immediacy of response it required, meant the fact that by the time the possibility of compulsory confinement was initially contemplated it was already belated and restrictions had become inevitable.
Recurring Errors
The report also pointed out that several similar errors – responding belatedly as well as underestimating the rate together with consequences of the pandemic's progression – were then repeated later in 2020, when controls were lifted only to be belatedly reintroduced in the face of infectious mutations.
The report describes this "unjustifiable," noting how those in charge did not to improve through repeated phases.
Total Impact
The UK endured one of the worst pandemic crises across Europe, recording approximately 240,000 virus-related lives lost.
This report constitutes the second from the public investigation into each part of the handling and management to the coronavirus, that started previously and is scheduled to continue through 2027.
