🔗 Share this article Confinement a Week Earlier Could Have Spared Over 20,000 Lives, Covid Report Finds An damning government inquiry concerning the United Kingdom's management to the pandemic situation has concluded which the response was "inadequate and belated," declaring that implementing confinement measures even one week before would have saved over 23,000 fatalities. Primary Results from the Report Outlined in over seven hundred and fifty documents across two parts, the conclusions depict a clear story showing delay, inaction and an evident failure to understand from experience. The description regarding the start of the coronavirus at the beginning of 2020 is portrayed as notably harsh, calling February as being "a lost month." Official Shortcomings Noted It questions the reasons why the then prime minister neglected to lead a single session of the emergency crisis committee in that period. The response to Covid largely stopped throughout the mid-term vacation. During the second week in March, the state of affairs was described as "nearly catastrophic," with inadequate preparation, no testing and thus little understanding regarding how far Covid had spread. Possible Outcome Even though acknowledging the fact that the move to implement a lockdown had been historic and extremely challenging, enacting additional measures to reduce the transmission of Covid more quickly would have allowed a lockdown may not have been necessary, or at least proved of shorter duration. Once confinement was inevitable, the investigation went on, if it had been introduced a week earlier, projections suggested that might have cut the number of deaths across England in the first wave of Covid by almost half, representing 23,000 fatalities avoided. The omission to appreciate the extent of the risk, or the need for action it necessitated, led to that once the possibility of a mandatory lockdown was first considered it had become too late and restrictions were inevitable. Repeated Mistakes The report also pointed out how many of these failures – reacting with delay as well as downplaying the speed together with effect of the virus's transmission – were later repeated later in 2020, as measures were removed and subsequently late reintroduced in the face of infectious mutations. It describes such repetition "unjustifiable," noting how those in charge failed to improve during successive phases. Final Count The UK suffered one of the deadliest coronavirus outbreaks in Europe, amounting to approximately two hundred forty thousand virus-related fatalities. This report represents another from the ongoing investigation into each part of the management as well as handling to Covid, that started two years ago and is scheduled to continue until 2027.