🔗 Share this article Lockdown a Week Sooner Might Have Prevented 23,000 Fatalities, Pandemic Inquiry Determines A damning official report into the United Kingdom's response to the Covid crisis has concluded which the response were "too little, too late," declaring that implementing restrictions even one week earlier might have saved more than twenty thousand lives. Key Findings of the Investigation Outlined in over seven hundred and fifty documents spanning two volumes, the conclusions depict a consistent narrative showing delay, inaction and an apparent inability to understand from experience. The narrative concerning the onset of the coronavirus at the beginning of 2020 is portrayed as particularly brutal, labeling the month of February as "a lost month." Government Shortcomings Noted It raises questions about why the then prime minister failed to chair any session of the government's Cobra response team that month. The response to the pandemic effectively halted over the half-term holiday week. During the second week in March, the state of affairs had become "little short of disastrous," with no proper plan, no testing and consequently no understanding regarding how far the coronavirus had circulated. Possible Outcome Even though admitting the fact that the choice to impose a lockdown was unprecedented as well as hugely difficult, implementing additional measures to reduce the circulation of coronavirus more quickly would have allowed that one may not have been necessary, or have been shorter. By the time confinement was inevitable, the report noted, if implemented introduced on 16 March, projections showed this would have lowered the count of lives lost within England during the initial wave of Covid by nearly 50%, representing 23,000 fatalities avoided. The omission to recognize the magnitude of the threat, or the urgency of response it required, resulted in that when the option of compulsory confinement was initially contemplated it had become belated and restrictions had become necessary. Recurring Errors The report further noted how many similar errors – reacting belatedly as well as underestimating the rate and impact of the pandemic's progression – occurred again subsequently in 2020, when controls were removed only to be belatedly reimposed because of spreading new strains. The report labels this "unjustifiable," adding that the government failed to learn lessons over successive outbreaks. Total Impact The UK experienced one of the deadliest pandemic outbreaks in Europe, with approximately 240 thousand Covid-related deaths. This investigation represents another by the ongoing review covering all aspects of the handling as well as management to the coronavirus, that was launched previously and is expected to run through 2027.