Covid Inquiry: UK “failed” public by preparing for the “wrong pandemic”

The first of nine reports from the UK’s Covid Inquiry was published yesterday, on the country’s resilience and preparedness to respond to a pandemic. The findings are damning – if not surprising. Among them is that the country was prepared for the “wrong pandemic”, failing citizens; that scientists’ groupthink undermined pandemic planning; that health systems were already “running close to if not beyond capacity” in 2020 and no-deal Brexit preparations diverted attention away from public health preparedness. In summary: the UK was “ill-prepared for dealing with a catastrophic emergency, let alone the coronavirus pandemic”. The inquiry chair, Baroness Heather Hallett, made ten recommendations to prevent history repeating itself when the next pandemic inevitably comes, including radically simplifying civil emergency preparedness and resilience systems. The official group for bereaved families has already said Hallett didn’t go far enough in tackling health inequalities.