A UK inquiry finds that around 23,000 deaths in England could have been prevented if the national lockdown had begun a week earlier in March 2020, highlighting major government failings during the pandemic
A UK COVID-19 inquiry has revealed that roughly 23,000 deaths in England during the first wave could have been avoided if the national lockdown had started a week earlier in March 2020. The report criticises the Government’s delayed response and leadership failures, which contributed to the scale of the crisis.
‘Too little, too late’: Thousands of Covid deaths could have been avoided
The report, delivered by chair Baroness Hallett, is the second module in the COVID-19 inquiry, echoes that the response from the UK Government and the devolved nations was ‘too little too late’.
The report concluded that the Governments failed to appreciate the scale of the threat or the urgency of the response it demanded in the early part of 2020. It also criticised the then-prime minister, Boris Johnson, and the then-health secretary, Matt Hancock, for their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the ‘toxic and chaotic culture’ within the UK Government.
Furthermore, the report found that ‘had restrictions been introduced sooner, the mandatory lockdown from 23 March might have been shorter or not necessary at all’.
To understand the lack of urgency towards the COVID-19 pandemic in the early days, researchers created a model to understand the impact of lockdowns on Covid deaths. The model showed that, in England, there would have been approximately 23,000 fewer deaths in the first wave, up to 1 July 2020, had a mandatory lockdown been imposed a week earlier, on 16 March 2020. Put another way, this would have reduced deaths in the first wave by 48%.
COVID-19 was not taken seriously by politicians
The death toll of COVID-19 is 230,000 people in the UK alone.
The BMA, which is a core participant in the UK COVID inquiry, says the module 2 report ‘lays bare the catastrophic impact’ of the UK Government’s lack of urgency and collective complacency’.
Tom Dolphin, chair of the BMA council, said: “As doctors who were looking after the sickest patients, my colleagues and I will recognise the report’s findings as a terrible indictment of the Government’s almost incomprehensible failings and incompetence.
“The Government told the country and NHS workers that the measures they were putting in place would stop the NHS from becoming overwhelmed; the report says otherwise. It also talks of “misleading assurances from the Department of Health and Social Care that the UK was well prepared for a pandemic”. On the front line, doctors and nurses could see the tidal wave of sick patients coming our way as we scrambled to be ready, even while the then prime minister was talking about shaking hands with patients.”
Lack of preparation, planning and strategy from the UK Government
The module 2 report states that the lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 saved lives, but the four Governments had not adequately prepared for a lockdown or had a strategy for when or how to exit one.
Furthermore, the report noted that politicians did not take the pandemic seriously enough until it was too late, describing February 2020 as a ‘lost month‘ as little action was taken despite clear evidence that the virus was spreading across Europe. To add to this, there was also no COBRA meeting chaired by the prime minister until 2 March 2020.
Boris Johnson was criticised for a ‘failure to appreciate the urgency of the situation‘ which the report said was ‘due to his optimism that it would amount to nothing‘ and ‘his attention being on other government priorities’.
The Government were advised that, in a worst-case scenario, up to 80% of the population could be infected, and that the test-and-trace system was unsuitable for a pandemic. The report also said that ‘none of the four governments gave enough attention to the possibility of a second wave’, meaning there was ‘little contingency planning in place’.
BMA council chair Dolphin said: “We are told that Boris Johnson had several things coming across his desk in early 2020, and the pandemic wasn’t even in the top five; weeks later, he was still telling people to go about their everyday business. All the while the death toll was slowly rising, no restrictions were in place, and a lack of PPE put healthcare staff at unacceptable risk in their day-to-day work.
“What is clear from today’s report is that expert guidance about how quickly and easily the virus would be transmitted between people, even if they had no symptoms, was repeatedly ignored. A wilfully under-resourced test and trace capacity proves, as the report says, that “any opportunity to get on top of the pandemic had been lost.”
