Britain ill-prepared for COVID-19 pandemic: inquiry

The British government was ill-prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic and serious errors in planning failed its citizens, an inquiry has found. Retired judge Heather Hallett, who is leading the ongoing inquiry, said the government wrongly believed in 2019 that it was one of the best-prepared countries in the world for an outbreak and it anticipated the wrong pandemic - influenza. "This belief was dangerously mistaken," Hallett said in releasing her first report on Thursday. "In reality, the UK was ill-prepared for dealing with the whole-system civil emergency of a pandemic, let alone the coronavirus pandemic that actually struck." The COVID-19 pandemic has been blamed for more than 235,000 deaths in the UK through the end of 2023 - one of the highest death tolls in the world. "Today's report confirms what many have always believed - that the UK was under-prepared for COVID-19, and that process, planning and policy across all four nations failed UK citizens," Prime Minister Keir Starmer said. "The safety and security of the country should always be the first priority, and this government is committed to learning the lessons from the inquiry and putting better measures in place to protect and prepare us from the impact of any future pandemic." The first report from the three-year inquiry was focused only on pandemic preparedness. A second phase looking at the government's response, including the "partygate" scandal in which then Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his staff broke their own rules by hosting work parties, is due later. A third phase will look into what lessons can be learned from how the nation handled the crisis. The inquiry is due to hold hearings until 2026. Hallett found that an outdated 2011 pandemic strategy for flu was not flexible enough to adapt to a crisis nearly a decade later and was abandoned almost immediately. "There were fatal strategic flaws underpinning the assessment of the risks faced by the UK, how those risks and their consequences could be managed and prevented from worsening and how the state should respond," Hallett said. There also was a lack of focus on what was needed to deal with a rapidly transmissible disease, and not enough done to build up a system to test, trace and isolate infected patients. Hallett said in her 217-page report the UK needs to be better prepared for the next pandemic - one that could be even deadlier. Hallett recommended a new pandemic strategy be developed and tested every three years, and government and political leaders should be accountable for having preparedness and resilience systems in place. "Unless the lessons are learned, and fundamental change is implemented, that effort and cost will have been in vain when it comes to the next pandemic," Hallett said. "Never again can a disease be allowed to lead to so many deaths and so much suffering."