🔗 Share this article Confinement a Week Sooner Might Have Saved Twenty-Three Thousand Lives, Coronavirus Investigation Finds An harsh official inquiry concerning the United Kingdom's management to the coronavirus situation has found that the reaction was "too little, too late," stating how imposing a lockdown just a single week before might have prevented over 23,000 fatalities. Main Conclusions of the Report Detailed across more than 750 documents covering two volumes, the findings portray a consistent story showing hesitation, inaction and an evident failure to absorb from experience. The description concerning the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020 is particularly harsh, calling February as "a month of inaction." Government Shortcomings Highlighted It raises questions about the reasons why the then prime minister did not to chair any gathering of the emergency response team in that period. Measures to Covid effectively paused throughout the mid-term vacation. In the second week of March, the state of affairs had become "almost disastrous," due to no proper strategy, a lack of testing and therefore little understanding of the extent to which the coronavirus was spreading. Possible Outcome Although recognizing that the decision to enforce a lockdown was historic and hugely difficult, taking additional measures to curb the spread of the virus sooner would have allowed that one could have been prevented, or alternatively have been of shorter duration. By the time restrictions was inevitable, the report went on, if it had been imposed on 16 March, modelling suggested that could have cut the count of lives lost in England during the initial wave of the virus by nearly 50%, equating to 23,000 fatalities avoided. The omission to appreciate the magnitude of the threat, and the urgency for measures it demanded, resulted in the fact that when the chance of enforced restrictions was initially contemplated it proved too late so that restrictions became unavoidable. Recurring Errors The investigation additionally pointed out that many similar errors – reacting with delay as well as downplaying the rate together with consequences of Covid’s spread – were later repeated subsequently in 2020, when restrictions were removed and subsequently delayed restored due to infectious variants. It calls this "inexcusable," noting that those in charge did not to absorb experience through successive outbreaks. Final Count The United Kingdom suffered among the deadliest Covid epidemics across Europe, with about two hundred forty thousand pandemic deaths. This report represents the second from the public inquiry regarding each part of the response and handling to Covid, which started in previous years and is scheduled to run through 2027.