UK govt & Covid-19

                                   
      

                        UK lawmakers said on Tuesday the government's response when Covid-19 swept into Europe cost thousands of lives and was one of the most important public health failures in the country's history. In a damning assessment, a cross party group of MP's found that official pandemic planning was "too narrowly and inflexibly based" on curbing Influenza, and had failed to learn the lessons from prior outbreaks of SARS, MERS and Ebola. Britain has suffered one of the highest tools in Europe with nearly 1,38,000 Corona Virus deaths since March last year, rising question about why it has fared worse than comparable nations.

          In their 145 pages report issued after months of hearings, MPs from two parliamentary committees said Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government waited too long to act in early 2020. Leading advisors were guilty of "group thing" and pushed a "gradual and incremental approach" to interventions such as social distancing, isolations and lock downs said their report. That approached was marked by "fatalism" about the spread of Covid-19 and a belief that the British Public would not tolerate the stringent measures taken in part of East Asia, but had been proved "wrong " and lead to a higher death toll.

                   Decision on lock downs and social distancing during the early weeks of the pandemic-- and the advice that led to them-- rank as one of the most important public health failures. United Kingdom has ever experienced, the lawmakers wrote. There were also many thousands of deaths which could have been avoided. When elderly patients were discharged from hospitals into care homes without testing, in contrast to the stricter approach taken by Germany and Hong Kong. He further said that the report also praised the government rapid launch of mass vaccination campaign against Covid-19 in December, arguing that had "redeemed some of the earlier failings.

Slap in the face   

               Hanna Brady spokeswoman for the group Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice called that finding in the report laughable. This is an empty to ignore and gaslight Bereaved Families, who will see it as a slap in the face, he said the MP's said Britain had also mistakenly implemented light touch border controls only on countries with high Covid-19 rates, when most cases were coming from France and Spain. Conservative MP Jeremy Hunt, a former Health Secretary who chairs one of the report committees, said the government had also failed to absorb the early experience of South Korea and Taiwan, which were quick to introduce mass test and trace system. East Asian Countries with direct experience of SARS and MERS respondent best in the first half of the pandemic, Hunt told BBC Radio. We were always running to catch up. He further said that the report also found that ethnic minority stop working on the front lines of the National Health Services faced greater difficulty in accessing appropriate personal protective equipment and suffered at disproportionate rates.

 Shaking hands            

                The lawmakers took evidence from a range of figures, including Johnson's controversial former Chief adviser Dominic Cummings, who has repeatedly assailed the Prime Minister's handling of the crises. Asked about the MPs report, Cummings said he had been working on new system of pandemic response of first wave of 2020. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister, being the joke that he is, has not pushed that work through, he told Sky News in early March, 2020 Johnson remarked he had been shaking the hand of Covid Patients  in hospital. Later the month, he was admitted himself to intensive care and nearly died. The Prime Minister has also faced criticism over his refusal to start a full public sooner, after announcing one in May. He intends to launch it next spring, arguing the inquiry, with its power to summon witnesses under oath, could hamper the country's ongoing pandemic response.