Britain’s response to the coronavirus at the start of the pandemic is one of the worst public health failures the country has ever seen. The opportunity to contain the virus from an early stage was missed, resulting in unnecessary deaths. This came in a damning parliamentary report on the Corona crisis that came out today, and where British media outlets are BBC, overwrite.

The 150-page report, written by committees of MPs from all parties, notes that the UK’s early approach focused on herd immunity. As a result, according to the parliamentarians, a deliberate choice was made for a slower approach, as a result of which the country performed “much worse” than other countries.

The first cases of corona were detected in the United Kingdom on January 31. On March 23, the British government announced a national lockdown. Among other things, the report is highly critical of that “late” moment.

“My destiny”

“This slow and incremental approach was not inevitable, nor was it the result of bureaucratic delays or disagreements between ministers and their advisors. This was a deliberate policy, proposed by official scientific advisors and adopted by all countries in the UK,” he said. Watchman from the report.

The report’s authors decried that the initial approach was too disastrous when there was so much knowledge available in the country, according to them. They also question why international experts did not share the British approach and why successful measures from other countries – eg strict lockdowns as in Asian countries – were not adopted earlier.

Parliamentarians accused the government and scientific advisors of taking a “forced” stance, rendering many of the policies unfeasible. It is said that ministers blindly followed scientific advice. Only when it became clear that the UK healthcare system would be overwhelmed by the large number of hospital admissions was the idea that it was “impossible” to suppress the virus.

The biggest challenge in peacetime

According to the House of Commons, the initial testing and investigation of the source and connection was “slow, uncertain and often chaotic” and “in the end, the goal of preventing future closures was not achieved”. The document also describes the epidemic as “the greatest peacetime challenge of the century”.

Conservative MPs and former ministers, Hunt and Clark, who chaired the respective committees, acknowledged that it was “impossible to do everything right”. “The UK has had some great achievements with some big mistakes and it is important to learn from both.”

Effective vaccination campaign

The report is particularly positive about the British vaccination campaign. The vaccination program has been called one of the most effective initiatives in history, and it has been confirmed that it will ultimately save millions of lives in the UK and around the world.

About fifty people participating in the British Corona Approach were interviewed for the report. Among those who have testified before parliamentary committees are former Health Secretary Matt Hancock and ailing former Prime Minister Johnson’s adviser Dominic Cummings. The latter has already mentioned the British Corona approach before “disastrous”.