🔗 Share this article Lockdown One Week Earlier Might Have Spared Over 20,000 Fatalities, Coronavirus Investigation Finds A damning independent investigation into the UK's response to the pandemic emergency determined which the actions were "inadequate and belated," noting that enacting a lockdown even a single week before would have spared over 23,000 deaths. Primary Results of the Report Outlined across over 750 pages spanning two parts, the findings depict a consistent story showing procrastination, failure to act as well as an evident inability to learn lessons. The description regarding the beginning of Covid-19 in early 2020 is especially harsh, describing February as "a month of inaction." Government Failures Noted The report questions the reasons why the then prime minister failed to convene a single meeting of the Cobra response team in that period. Action to Covid effectively paused throughout the school break. In the second week of that March, the situation was "nearly catastrophic," with a lack of preparation, insufficient testing and therefore no understanding about the extent to which Covid had circulated. Potential Impact Even though admitting that the choice to impose a lockdown was without precedent as well as extremely challenging, taking further steps to slow the spread of the virus earlier would have allowed that one could have been prevented, or at least have been of shorter duration. When confinement was necessary, the report went on, had it been imposed on 16 March, estimates indicated that might have cut the number of fatalities across England during the initial wave of Covid by almost half, equating to twenty-three thousand deaths prevented. The inability to understand the scale of the risk, or the need for measures it demanded, resulted in the fact that when the possibility of enforced restrictions was initially contemplated it was already too delayed so that restrictions had become unavoidable. Repeated Mistakes The investigation further highlighted that many similar errors – reacting too slowly and minimizing the rate and effect of the virus's transmission – were later repeated subsequently in 2020, as restrictions were eased only to be belatedly reintroduced due to infectious variants. It labels this "unacceptable," stating how the government did not to improve through successive outbreaks. Total Impact Britain experienced one of the most severe coronavirus epidemics in Europe, amounting to around two hundred forty thousand Covid-related deaths. This investigation represents another by the national inquiry into each part of the handling as well as response to the coronavirus, that was launched in previous years and is scheduled to proceed until 2027.