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An harsh independent investigation concerning the UK's management to the Covid crisis has found which the reaction was "too little, too late," declaring how enacting confinement measures only a single week sooner could have prevented in excess of 20,000 fatalities.

Key Findings of the Report

Documented through exceeding seven hundred and fifty pages across two parts, the results depict a consistent picture showing hesitation, failure to act as well as an apparent inability to absorb from experience.

The narrative concerning the beginning of Covid-19 in early 2020 is notably critical, describing February as "a wasted month."

Ministerial Failures Noted

• It raises questions about why the then prime minister failed to convene a single gathering of the government's Cobra crisis committee that month.
• Measures to the virus largely stopped over the school break.
• During the second week of that March, the situation was "almost disastrous," with inadequate preparation, insufficient testing and thus no understanding of the extent to which the coronavirus was spreading.

Possible Outcome

Even though recognizing that the choice to enforce a lockdown proved to be without precedent as well as exceptionally hard, taking further steps to curb the spread of coronavirus sooner would have allowed that one may not have been necessary, or proved less lengthy.

Once confinement was necessary, the report stated, had it been introduced on 16 March, estimates showed this might have reduced the total of fatalities in England in the earliest phase of the pandemic by around half, representing over 20,000 lives saved.

The omission to recognize the magnitude of the danger, or the need for measures it demanded, resulted in the fact that once the possibility of a mandatory lockdown was initially contemplated it had become too late and such measures became inevitable.

Recurring Errors

The inquiry additionally noted that a number of similar errors – reacting belatedly and minimizing the speed together with consequences of the virus's transmission – were then repeated later in 2020, as controls were removed and then belatedly restored due to contagious new strains.

It describes such repetition "inexcusable," stating how officials were unable to absorb experience during multiple phases.

Final Count

The United Kingdom experienced one of the deadliest pandemic epidemics across Europe, recording around 240 thousand pandemic fatalities.

This report is the latest from the national review covering every element of the handling and response to the coronavirus, which started two years ago and is scheduled to continue until 2027.