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A damning independent inquiry concerning the UK's response of the coronavirus crisis has found that the actions was "insufficient and delayed," stating that enacting confinement measures just seven days earlier would have prevented in excess of 23,000 fatalities.

Key Findings from the Inquiry

Documented across over seven hundred fifty documents across two volumes, the results depict an unmistakable story showing delay, lack of action and a seeming failure to understand from experience.

The description regarding the beginning of the coronavirus in the first months of 2020 has been described as particularly critical, labeling the month of February as "a wasted month."

Ministerial Failures Noted

• The report questions why the UK leader did not to chair one gathering of the Cobra emergency committee in that period.
• Action to Covid largely halted over the half-term holiday week.
• In the second week of that March, the situation was described as "almost catastrophic," due to a lack of plan, a lack of testing and therefore no understanding regarding how far the virus was spreading.

What Could Have Been

While admitting that the move to impose a lockdown proved to be historic as well as hugely difficult, taking other action to slow the circulation of coronavirus earlier would have allowed that one could have been prevented, or alternatively proved of shorter duration.

Once confinement was inevitable, the inquiry authors stated, if implemented introduced on March 16, modelling suggested that could have reduced the count of fatalities across England in the first wave of Covid by around half, representing over 20,000 fatalities avoided.

The omission to recognize the scale of the risk, or the need for measures it demanded, resulted in the fact that once the possibility of compulsory confinement was first considered it had become too late and such measures became necessary.

Repeated Mistakes

The inquiry additionally highlighted how many of the same errors – reacting with delay as well as underestimating the pace together with consequences of Covid’s spread – were later repeated subsequently in 2020, when measures were eased and subsequently belatedly reintroduced because of spreading mutations.

It describes this "unjustifiable," adding that the government failed to absorb experience over repeated outbreaks.

Final Count

The UK experienced one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in Europe, with around 240 thousand pandemic fatalities.

This investigation constitutes another by the ongoing review into each part of the handling as well as response to the coronavirus, which started previously and is scheduled to run until 2027.