COVID response one of worst ever ‘public health failures’ in UK
Al Jazeera
Damning parliamentary report on UK handling of pandemic lists catalogue of errors including delay to lockdown.
The United Kingdom government’s early response to COVID-19 and the delay in imposing a lockdown early last year was “one of the most important public health failures” in the country’s history and cost thousands of lives, a damning parliamentary report has found.
The cross-party group of UK legislators also noted the government failed to develop an effective test-and-trace system, which could have helped curb the spread of the virus, and followed a policy of what effectively amounted to “herd immunity”.
“The UK, along with many other countries in Europe and North America made a serious early error in adopting this fatalistic approach and not considering a more emphatic and rigorous approach to stopping the spread of the virus as adopted by many East and Southeast Asian countries,” said the 151-page report published on Tuesday. The review was based on hours of testimony from more than 50 witnesses, including advisers on government policy, health and science.
