British COVID report called initial response ‘too little, too late’

Nov. 20 (UPI) — A scathing report published in Britain details the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, saying the early failure to take the disease seriously claimed thousands of lives.

He said that the four The governments of the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) I couldn’t understand the magnitude of the threat.

“The investigation concludes that the response of the four governments repeatedly represented a case of ‘too little, too late,'” he said.

The inquiry, led by Baroness Heather Hallett, a retired appeals judge, used modeling data showing that if the lockdown had started a week earlier, there would have been 23,000 fewer deaths. The report is 750 pages long, divided into two volumes.

The UK government first recommended restrictions on 16 March 2020. These included self-isolation, home quarantine and social distancing. It imposed a complete lockdown on March 23.

The report also harshly criticizes the then Prime Minister. Boris Johnsonsaying there was a “toxic culture” at No. 10 Downing.

He said Johnson “reinforced a culture in which the loudest voices prevailed and the opinions of other colleagues, particularly women, were often ignored, to the detriment of good decision-making.”

The early COVID crisis in Italy “should have prompted urgent planning in all four nations,” according to the report. “Instead, governments did not take the pandemic seriously enough until it was too late. February 2020 was a wasted month.”

Johnson should have chaired Cabinet Office Briefing Room A meetings for the first month, the report said. During a holiday in February, Johnson spent the week at the government country retreat in Chevening, the report said. “It does not appear that you have been informed, at all or in any meaningful way, about COVID-19, and you did not receive daily updates.”

The lockdown was delayed in March because scientific advisers Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance warned of “behavioural fatigue”, which meant people would only comply for a period. But this “had no basis in behavioral science and was detrimental, given the imperative to act more decisively and sooner,” according to the report.