The UK’s independent inquiry into COVID-19 will be launched in spring 2022. Until then, this parliamentary report is the best assessment we are likely to make of the government’s response to the pandemic.
And leaving aside the success of the vaccine and the former health secretary Matt HancockThe “100,000 test goal”, the multi-party committee The conclusions are damning..
The government’s initial “fatalistic” approach was “a serious early mistake.” The test, trace and isolate system was “often chaotic” and “ultimately failed.” Thousands of deaths in nursing homes “could have been avoided.”
Many of these criticisms reflect Dominic CummingsThe brilliant vision of the government’s failures. In May, he argued: “Tens of thousands of people died who didn’t have to die.”
Unsurprisingly, the committee avoids echoing Mr Cummings’ intense personal attacks on the Prime Minister (“unfit for work”), his wife (“going mad”) and Mr Hancock (“criminal behaviour”). and shameful”).
But they do use strong language (“serious error”, “major deficiencies”) to describe how parts of the public administration were unprepared to deal with complex crises.
The committee of deputies is especially critical of the functioning of the COBR, the government’s emergency committee.
And they argue that Public Health England (PHE) was “scientifically accomplished” but poor in its execution.
Of course, those in government maintain that many of these lessons have been learned a long time ago. PHE has been scrapped and replaced by the UK Health Security Agency.
The Health Department’s policies have completely changed. Mr Cummings and Mr Hancock have left their jobs.
However, the report is a reminder that while the UK’s vaccination strategy was excellently executed, many huge mistakes had already been made.
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