Boris Johnson could have saved thousands – a report
An official report found that thousands of lives would have been saved, had Boris Johnson managed the pandemic smarter.
Boris Johnson is under pressure to face public inquire on how the pandemic was mishandled after a report by MPs condemned errors that cost thousands of lives, the Mirror reports.
Why were lockdowns so late?
Experts said that introducing lockdowns a week earlier than March 23, 2020, would have cut the 40,000 death toll in the first wave “by at least half”.
A joint probe by the Commons health and science committees branded the delay “one of the most important public health failures” the UK had ever suffered.
The MPs said: “It is now clear this was the wrong policy, and that it led to a higher initial death toll than would have resulted from a more emphatic early policy. In a pandemic spreading rapidly and exponentially every week counted.”
Other qualms
Alongside lockdown delays, the cross-party report criticized the Test and Trace system, as well as negligence of elderly care.
MPs described the £38billion Test and Trace system as “slow, uncertain and often chaotic,” and it failed to prevent future lockdowns.
According to the Mirror, the report also criticised the government’s failure to put a “protective ring” around care homes, where more than 40,000 elderly and vulnerable people have died from Covid.
What did Jonson get right?
“Ministers were correct to identify that a vaccine would be the long-term route out of the pandemic and presciently supported their research and development,” the report says.
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