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An damning government inquiry regarding Britain's management to the Covid situation has found that the reaction was "too little, too late," stating how imposing a lockdown even a single week before would have prevented in excess of 23,000 lives.

Main Conclusions from the Investigation

Detailed through over seven hundred and fifty sections spanning two volumes, the results portray an unmistakable story of procrastination, lack of action and an evident incapacity to absorb from mistakes.

The description concerning the onset of the coronavirus in early 2020 is portrayed as particularly critical, describing February as "a wasted month."

Government Shortcomings Highlighted

• It raises questions about the reasons why the UK leader failed to convene a single meeting of the government's Cobra crisis committee in that period.
• Measures to the virus essentially paused over the half-term holiday week.
• During the second week in March, the situation was described as "almost disastrous," with a lack of preparation, a lack of testing and therefore no understanding about the extent to which Covid had circulated.

Potential Impact

While acknowledging the fact that the decision to enforce confinement was without precedent and extremely challenging, taking additional measures to reduce the circulation of Covid sooner might have resulted in a lockdown could have been prevented, or alternatively proved shorter.

When a lockdown was necessary, the report went on, had it been imposed on 16 March, modelling showed this could have reduced the total of fatalities in England in the first wave of the pandemic by nearly 50%, which equals twenty-three thousand fatalities avoided.

The failure to appreciate the scale of the risk, or the urgency for measures it demanded, meant that once the chance of compulsory confinement was first considered it had become too late so that restrictions became necessary.

Repeated Mistakes

The inquiry further noted how a number of similar mistakes – responding too slowly as well as minimizing the rate together with impact of the pandemic's progression – were later repeated subsequently in 2020, as measures were eased and subsequently delayed restored in the face of infectious mutations.

The report labels such repetition "unacceptable," noting how officials failed to improve through successive outbreaks.

Overall Toll

The United Kingdom suffered one of the worst coronavirus crises within Europe, amounting to about 240 thousand Covid-related lives lost.

This report is the latest by the national inquiry into each part of the management as well as handling to Covid, that was launched in previous years and is expected to continue until 2027.