NEVER AGAIN

Tories prepared for wrong pandemic' | Radical reforms a must, says report

- MARTIN BAGOT and DAVE BURKE

FAILURES to protect Britain from the pandemic were exposed in a damning report, which stated “never again can a disease be allowed to lead to so many deaths and suffering”.

The UK Covid-19 Inquiry's first report blamed Tory health secretaries for "preparing for the wrong pandemic" and assuming it could not be tackled through widespread contact tracing.

It was highly critical of how Boris Johnson's government handled Covid.

Inquiry chair Baroness Heather Hallett said Britain was vulnerable with the NHS running "close to, if not beyond capacity" before the virus. She added: "The primary duty of the state is to protect its citizens from harm. It is therefore the state's duty to ensure the UK is as properly prepared to meet the threats from a lethal disease as it is from a hostile force. Both are threats to national security."

Lady Hallett told of the "harrowing testimony of loss and grief given by bereaved witnesses", adding: "There must be radical reform."

Some 227,000 people died in the UK with Covid from March 2020 to May 2023.

Bereaved families gathered outside the hearing in Paddington, West London, as the 217-page report revealed some of the "human cost" may have been avoided had the UK been better prepared. Covid struck after a decade of Tory austerity cuts. The probe found there was a lack of "surge capacity" in the public health workforce to deal with a spike in demand and little contact tracing infrastructure to control a new virus.