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A damning government inquiry concerning the United Kingdom's handling to the pandemic crisis has concluded that the actions were "too little, too late," stating how implementing confinement measures even a single week before might have prevented more than 23,000 deaths.

Main Conclusions of the Investigation

Documented through over 750 documents covering two volumes, the conclusions paint an unmistakable picture of delay, inaction and a seeming inability to learn from mistakes.

The description about the start of Covid-19 in the first months of 2020 is portrayed as notably harsh, describing February as "a month of inaction."

Government Errors Noted

• It raises questions about why the then prime minister did not to lead a single session of the emergency response team that month.
• The response to the pandemic essentially stopped throughout the school break.
• During the second week in March, the circumstances had become "nearly calamitous," with inadequate strategy, insufficient testing and consequently little understanding about the degree to which the coronavirus had circulated.

Potential Impact

Even though admitting that the move to implement restrictions proved to be unprecedented and extremely challenging, implementing additional measures to curb the transmission of the virus sooner might have resulted in such measures might have been avoided, or proved shorter.

When restrictions was necessary, the report went on, if it had been imposed on March 16, estimates indicated this might have reduced the count of fatalities within England during the initial wave of the pandemic by around half, representing twenty-three thousand fatalities avoided.

The failure to recognize the extent of the threat, or the urgency for measures it demanded, resulted in that when the possibility of enforced restrictions was initially contemplated it was already too delayed and such measures had become unavoidable.

Repeated Mistakes

The report also noted how a number of of these mistakes – reacting belatedly and minimizing the rate and effect of the pandemic's progression – were then repeated subsequently in 2020, as measures were lifted and then delayed restored due to spreading mutations.

It calls such repetition "unjustifiable," stating how those in charge were unable to absorb experience during successive waves.

Total Impact

The UK suffered one of the worst pandemic crises across Europe, recording approximately 240,000 virus-related lives lost.

This investigation is the second from the public investigation regarding each part of the handling as well as response to the coronavirus, which began previously and is scheduled to run through 2027.