brad465
Established Member
The report in question cites our initial response in the early stages of the pandemic to have been one of the worst public health failures, while giving praise to the vaccine rollout:
There's plenty of blame aimed at the government, but also the scientists advising them early on.
Personally I think there needs to be another report into this in a year or twos time (in addition to the actual public inquiry), that examines the actual effectiveness of the measures utilised at the time and whether the benefits are worth the costs, as many of the costs still won't be known yet. Then of course there's the simple fact a lot of factors in our response were never ever done before in history.
Covid: UK's early response worst public health failure ever, MPs say
But the new report by MPs fails to reflect the views of bereaved relatives, campaigners say.
www.bbc.co.uk
The UK's failure to do more to stop Covid spreading early in the pandemic was one of the worst ever public health failures, a report by MPs says.
The government approach - backed by its scientists - was to try to manage the situation and in effect achieve herd immunity by infection, it said.
This led to a delay in introducing the first lockdown, costing lives.
But the report by a cross-party group said there had been successes too - in particular the vaccination programme.
It described the whole approach - from the research and development through to the rollout of the jabs - as "one of the most effective initiatives in UK history".
The findings are detailed in the long-awaited report from the Health and Social Care Committee and the Science and Technology Committee, which contain MPs from all parties.
Across 150 pages, the committees cover a variety of successes and failings over the course of the pandemic, which has claimed more than 150,000 lives to date and is described by the MPs as the "biggest peacetime challenge" for a century.
Tory MPs Jeremy Hunt and Greg Clark, who chair the committees, said the nature of the pandemic meant it was "impossible to get everything right".
"The UK has combined some big achievements with some big mistakes. It is vital to learn from both," they added in a statement to accompany the report.
A government spokesperson said lessons would be learned, which was why there would be a full public inquiry next year.
He added: "We have never shied away from taking quick and decisive action to save lives and protect our NHS, including introducing restrictions and lockdowns.
"Thanks to a collective national effort, we avoided NHS services becoming overwhelmed."
But Labour's shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said the findings were "damning" and showed what "monumental errors" had been made.
The committee did not look at the steps taken individually by Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
There's plenty of blame aimed at the government, but also the scientists advising them early on.
Personally I think there needs to be another report into this in a year or twos time (in addition to the actual public inquiry), that examines the actual effectiveness of the measures utilised at the time and whether the benefits are worth the costs, as many of the costs still won't be known yet. Then of course there's the simple fact a lot of factors in our response were never ever done before in history.