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An harsh independent investigation concerning the United Kingdom's management of the pandemic emergency has concluded which the reaction were "too little, too late," declaring that imposing confinement measures even seven days before would have saved over 23,000 fatalities.

Key Findings from the Investigation

Documented in more than 750 sections across two volumes, the conclusions paint a clear narrative of procrastination, failure to act as well as an evident incapacity to understand lessons.

The account about the onset of the coronavirus at the beginning of 2020 is portrayed as notably brutal, calling the month of February as "a month of inaction."

Official Errors Highlighted

• The report questions the reasons why Boris Johnson failed to convene any meeting of the government's Cobra response team in that period.
• Action to the pandemic largely halted over the half-term holiday week.
• By the second week of that March, the situation had become "little short of disastrous," with a lack of strategy, no testing and therefore no understanding regarding how far the coronavirus had spread.

What Could Have Been

Even though recognizing that the choice to impose confinement proved to be unprecedented as well as hugely difficult, implementing further steps to curb the circulation of coronavirus more quickly might have resulted in a lockdown may not have been necessary, or alternatively have been less lengthy.

Once a lockdown became unavoidable, the inquiry authors stated, had it been enforced on March 16, modelling showed this could have cut the number of deaths across England during the initial wave of the virus by nearly 50%, which equals 23,000 fatalities avoided.

The inability to understand the extent of the threat, and the need of response it required, meant the fact that by the time the option of compulsory confinement was first considered it was already belated and such measures were unavoidable.

Ongoing Failures

The report also highlighted how many of these failures – reacting too slowly as well as minimizing the speed together with consequences of the pandemic's progression – were then repeated in the latter part of 2020, as controls were lifted only to be belatedly reimposed due to contagious variants.

It describes this "inexcusable," stating how those in charge did not to improve during repeated outbreaks.

Final Count

The United Kingdom experienced one of the deadliest coronavirus epidemics across Europe, with around 240,000 pandemic deaths.

This report is the latest by the public review covering every element of the handling as well as management to the coronavirus, which was launched in previous years and is expected to run until 2027.