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A critical independent inquiry regarding the United Kingdom's response to the Covid emergency has concluded that the actions was "insufficient and delayed," noting how imposing a lockdown just seven days before could have spared over 20,000 lives.

Primary Results of the Report

Outlined through more than seven hundred and fifty sections covering two parts, the results paint an unmistakable narrative showing hesitation, failure to act and an apparent incapacity to understand from mistakes.

The narrative about the start of Covid-19 in the first months of 2020 is particularly brutal, calling February as "a wasted month."

Government Failures Highlighted

• The report questions the reasons why the then prime minister failed to lead a single meeting of the emergency response team in that period.
• Measures to Covid largely stopped throughout the half-term holiday week.
• In the second week of March, the situation was "little short of disastrous," with inadequate plan, insufficient testing and therefore no clear picture about the extent to which the coronavirus had spread.

Possible Outcome

While admitting the fact that the move to implement restrictions had been without precedent as well as hugely difficult, implementing further steps to curb the transmission of Covid sooner would have allowed a lockdown may not have been necessary, or alternatively have been shorter.

When restrictions was inevitable, the investigation went on, if it had been imposed a week earlier, modelling showed that would have lowered the count of fatalities within England in the earliest phase of the virus by around half, representing over 20,000 lives saved.

The inability to appreciate the scale of the danger, or the urgency for action it required, led to the fact that once the possibility of compulsory confinement was first discussed it proved too late and a lockdown had become unavoidable.

Repeated Mistakes

The inquiry also pointed out that many of these failures – reacting belatedly as well as downplaying the speed and consequences of Covid’s spread – occurred again in the latter part of 2020, when measures were lifted and then belatedly restored due to spreading mutations.

It labels such repetition "inexcusable," noting how the government failed to absorb experience through multiple outbreaks.

Overall Toll

The UK suffered among the deadliest pandemic epidemics in Europe, recording about 240,000 Covid-related fatalities.

The inquiry represents the second from the national inquiry regarding all aspects of the response and response to Covid, which started previously and is expected to proceed until 2027.