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A critical official inquiry regarding the United Kingdom's handling of the coronavirus crisis determined that the actions was "insufficient and delayed," stating that implementing a lockdown only a single week earlier would have prevented in excess of twenty thousand lives.

Key Findings of the Report

Detailed in more than 750 documents across two parts, the conclusions portray a consistent picture showing procrastination, lack of action and an apparent failure to understand from mistakes.

The narrative about the beginning of Covid-19 in the first months of 2020 is portrayed as particularly harsh, describing February as "a lost month."

Official Errors Highlighted

• The report questions why the UK leader neglected to convene a single meeting of the Cobra crisis committee that month.
• Measures to Covid essentially stopped over the school break.
• By the second week of that March, the circumstances was described as "nearly catastrophic," due to a lack of plan, no testing and thus no clear picture about the extent to which the coronavirus was spreading.

What Could Have Been

Although admitting the fact that the choice to enforce confinement proved to be without precedent as well as hugely difficult, taking other action to reduce the spread of coronavirus more quickly could have meant that one could have been prevented, or alternatively been of shorter duration.

When a lockdown was inevitable, the investigation stated, if it had been enforced on 16 March, estimates indicated this would have cut the total of deaths within England in the first wave of Covid by nearly 50%, equating to 23,000 lives saved.

The omission to understand the magnitude of the risk, and the need of response it required, meant that once the possibility of enforced restrictions was first discussed it proved too late so that such measures were inevitable.

Repeated Mistakes

The inquiry also highlighted how many of these failures – reacting belatedly and minimizing the speed and effect of Covid’s spread – were then repeated later in 2020, as measures were eased only to be late restored due to spreading variants.

It labels such repetition "unjustifiable," adding how officials did not to learn lessons during successive outbreaks.

Overall Toll

Britain suffered one of the worst pandemic outbreaks in Europe, amounting to approximately 240 thousand virus-related deaths.

This investigation constitutes another from the ongoing investigation covering each part of the handling and response to the coronavirus, that started previously and is expected to proceed through 2027.