The initial UK-wide political response to the Covid-19 pandemic was “too little, too late” and cost up to 23,000 lives in England alone during the first wave in spring 2020, the UK’s pandemic inquiry has found.
It also found it “inexcusable” that the same mistakes were repeated in later waves, while also finding that some lockdowns could have been avoided altogether.
The 756-page report from the inquiry, chaired by retired judge Heather Hallett, found that a “toxic and chaotic culture” in Downing Street under UK prime minister Boris Johnson hampered the UK’s response.
It also blamed Mr Johnson for his “failure to appreciate the urgency of the situation” as it deteriorated through March 2020. It said he “actively encouraged” the toxic culture, which it also blamed on people including his former adviser Dominic Cummings.
RM Block
The report also criticised the devolved governments in the North, Wales and Scotland for their “failure to engage with the threat” early on in the pandemic.
It found that later in the response, Wales evolved to a “consensual” political decision-making approach while real power in Scotland became very centralised around former first minister “Nicola Sturgeon”. But it found she was a “serious and diligent leader” who took “responsibility”.
The political response in the North, however, was found to be “chaotic” at times and “marred” by political disputes between Sinn Féin and the DUP.
The report found that the UK’s lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 left “long lasting scars” on society and exacerbated inequality.
“The Covid-19 lockdowns only became inevitable because of the actions and omissions of the [UK and devolved] governments,” the report found.
It said it “should have been clear” by the end of January 2020 on evidence that the virus had spread beyond China that it posed a “serious and immediate threat” but the UK’s political system “lacked urgency”.
It said Mr Johnson’s failure to appreciate the urgency was “due to his optimism that it would amount to nothing”. Meanwhile, the devolved governments had all “failed to engage with the threat” in the early stages.
The report found that February 2020 was a “lost month” in the UK’s response, when it initially followed a looser but doomed containment or “herd immunity” strategy, due to worries that UK citizens would not follow antivirus restrictions over a long period.
“This concept of ‘behavioural fatigue’ had no concept in behavioural science and proved damaging,” the report found.
It found that Friday March 13th 2020 was a “watershed moment” in the UK’s response, when authorities realised they had underestimated the initial spread of the virus and its impact.
It found that restrictions implemented on March 16th in the UK should have been done sooner. If so, it said that later mandatory lockdowns might have been lighter or not necessary at all.
But the inquiry rejected the notion that governments were wrong to impose lockdown in principle. Ms Hallett said that “no government, acting in accordance with its overarching duty to preserve life, could ignore” the advice to implement lockdowns.
The report criticised Mr Johnson’s UK government for coming out of the first lockdown too fast, while the devolved governments were all more cautious. However, the response in the North was undermined by disputes when former deputy first minister Michelle O’Neill sparked a row by attending the funeral of IRA man Bobby Storey.
It said the various governments “all failed to learn from the experience of the first lockdown”. In particular, it criticised Mr Johnson’s government for failing to implement a “circuit breaker” lockdown in autumn of 2020, which it said might have lessened the need for later stricter lockdowns.
The report was less critical of UK and devolved government actions later in the pandemic, especially after the emergence of vaccines. “The four governments had learned,” Ms Hallett said.
She found that, at times, children “were not always prioritised” as they should have been. She found that the UK cabinet was “largely sidelined” during the pandemic, amid its “toxic” decision making culture. She criticised in particular the “destabilising behaviour” of Mr Cummings.
Ms Hallett found that police at times operated with little guidance, while public messaging sometimes “failed to reflect the laws” actually in place. A “lack of trust” between Mr Johnson and the devolved first ministers also “coloured the approach”.
