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A critical official investigation into Britain's handling to the pandemic emergency has concluded which the reaction were "insufficient and delayed," stating that enacting a lockdown even seven days before could have spared in excess of 23,000 lives.

Main Conclusions of the Report

Documented across exceeding seven hundred fifty documents across two volumes, the conclusions portray a clear picture of procrastination, failure to act and an apparent inability to learn from experience.

The account about the start of the coronavirus in the first months of 2020 is portrayed as notably critical, labeling the month of February as being "a lost month."

Government Shortcomings Emphasized

• It questions the reasons why the then prime minister failed to convene one meeting of the government's Cobra crisis committee in that period.
• The response to the virus effectively halted throughout the school break.
• In the second week of that March, the state of affairs was "almost catastrophic," due to no proper preparation, a lack of testing and consequently no understanding regarding the degree to which the virus was spreading.

Potential Impact

Although recognizing the fact that the move to implement a lockdown was without precedent and hugely difficult, implementing additional measures to curb the transmission of the virus earlier might have resulted in a lockdown may not have been necessary, or alternatively proved shorter.

Once a lockdown became unavoidable, the investigation noted, had it been introduced a week earlier, modelling indicated this would have lowered the total of lives lost within England in the earliest phase of Covid by around half, which equals over 20,000 lives saved.

The inability to understand the magnitude of the danger, and the need for measures it demanded, led to the fact that by the time the possibility of compulsory confinement was first considered it was already belated and such measures were necessary.

Ongoing Failures

The investigation further noted how a number of similar mistakes – responding too slowly as well as downplaying the pace and consequences of the pandemic's progression – were then repeated in the latter part of 2020, when measures were eased only to be belatedly reintroduced because of spreading new strains.

The report calls such repetition "inexcusable," noting how the government were unable to learn lessons through repeated phases.

Overall Toll

Britain endured one of the deadliest pandemic crises across Europe, with approximately two hundred forty thousand pandemic deaths.

This investigation represents the latest by the ongoing inquiry covering each part of the handling and response of the pandemic, which began in previous years and is expected to proceed until 2027.