🔗 Share this article Confinement a Week Before Could Have Prevented Twenty-Three Thousand Fatalities, Coronavirus Investigation Finds An critical independent investigation regarding the UK's handling to the Covid emergency has concluded that the response were "too little, too late," declaring how imposing a lockdown just seven days earlier could have spared in excess of 23,000 lives. Primary Results of the Investigation Detailed across exceeding 750 documents across two reports, the conclusions depict a consistent story of hesitation, inaction and an apparent failure to learn lessons. The narrative regarding the start of the coronavirus at the beginning of 2020 is especially brutal, labeling the month of February as "a lost month." Official Failures Emphasized It questions the reasons why Boris Johnson failed to chair one meeting of the Cobra emergency committee in that period. Measures to the virus essentially stopped throughout the mid-term vacation. In the second week of that March, the situation was described as "little short of calamitous," with a lack of plan, a lack of testing and consequently no understanding about how far Covid had circulated. Possible Outcome Even though acknowledging that the move to enforce restrictions was without precedent and hugely difficult, taking further steps to slow the circulation of Covid earlier would have allowed a lockdown may not have been necessary, or alternatively proved of shorter duration. By the time confinement became unavoidable, the investigation went on, had it been enforced on March 16, modelling showed this could have reduced the count of deaths in England in the first wave of the virus by nearly 50%, equating to twenty-three thousand lives saved. The failure to recognize the scale of the risk, and the need for measures it required, meant the fact that once the chance of compulsory confinement was initially contemplated it was already too late so that such measures became unavoidable. Repeated Mistakes The investigation also noted that a number of of the same errors – reacting too slowly and downplaying the speed together with effect of Covid’s spread – were then repeated subsequently in 2020, as measures were eased and then belatedly restored due to infectious variants. The report labels this "unacceptable," noting how the government failed to absorb experience during multiple phases. Overall Toll Britain experienced one of the most severe pandemic outbreaks within Europe, with approximately two hundred forty thousand virus-related lives lost. This investigation represents another from the public inquiry regarding all aspects of the response as well as response to Covid, which was launched two years ago and is due to continue until 2027.