Report labels COVID-19 response in UK as 'slow'

An independent report by members of parliament has said the United Kingdom's slow response to stopping the spread of COVID-19 at the start of the pandemic led to "one of the worst ever public health failures".

The report, titled Coronavirus: Lessons Learned to Date, focuses primarily on what happened in England, rather than the whole UK, and was compiled by the all-party Health and Social Care and Science and Technology committees.

According to government figures published on Monday, the UK's death toll from the pandemic is 137,763, with COVID-19 listed in 160,824 death certificates. In all of Europe, only Russia has a higher figure than the UK.

On March 3 last year, 20 days before the first national lockdown was introduced, Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressed confidence of the situation at a news conference.

"I was at a hospital the other night where I think there were a few coronavirus patients and I shook hands with everybody, you will be pleased to know, and I continue to shake hands," he said.

"People obviously can make up their own minds, but I think the scientific evidence is … our judgment is that washing your hands is the crucial thing."

However, The Guardian reported that same day that the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies had suggested the government should "advise against greetings such as shaking hands and hugging, given existing evidence about the importance of hand hygiene".

The delayed introduction of a lockdown is thought to have cost thousands of lives, and the report said the failure to learn from countries affected earlier meant "the veil of ignorance through which the UK viewed the initial weeks of the pandemic was partly self-inflicted".

The contentious issue of whether herd immunity was ever government policy was addressed. But Jeremy Hunt, chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, said he could not see there was a conscious desire for it.

However, he told the BBC Radio 4 Today program there was a "fatalism that it was likely that in the end, that will be the only way that we will stop the progress of the virus".

"I think we wanted to do everything we could, but once we had concluded there was community transmission, that was going to be very difficult," Hunt said.

'Serious early error'

Delaying lockdown was called a "serious early error", and the test and trace service, which was introduced in late May, was described as "slow, uncertain and often chaotic".

Hunt told Sky News that politicians should have questioned the advice that they were being given.

"We know that some of that scientific advice was wrong, but also that politicians should have challenged that advice," he said.

"You can't just say 'we're following the science'. You have to dig down and ask why scientists are saying what they're saying. That challenge should have happened earlier."

When interviewed on Sky News, Cabinet Office Minister Stephen Barclay repeatedly refused the opportunity to apologize for the government's handling of the crisis.

"Of course, if there are lessons to learn, we're keen to do so," he said.