The ‘Covid’ (lack of) inquiry is a joke – as it was always meant to be. The official story bought and paid for – ‘there was no virus’ was never going to enter the equation

Civil Service “groupthink”, Brexit and planning for flu rather than a coronavirus led Britain to be unprepared for the pandemic, the Covid Inquiry has found. The Telegraph has more.

Baroness Hallett, the inquiry’s Chairman, said Ministers “failed their citizens” by preparing for the wrong pandemic, which led more people to die from Covid,

The Government’s flawed planning was hampered by “groupthink” and bureaucracy, which Health Secretaries such as Jeremy Hunt failed to challenge, the inquiry’s first report said.

Lady Hallett said that the failure to plan properly led to more deaths and a greater cost to the economy.

She said the country suffered from a “lack of adequate leadership” in the run up to Covid and the country was “ill prepared for dealing with a catastrophic emergency, let alone the coronavirus pandemic that actually struck”.

“Had the U.K. been better prepared for and more resilient to the pandemic, some of that financial and human cost may have been avoided,” the report said.

The report also found that some recommendations to improve the Government’s response to a potential pandemic had not been implemented because the Government was focused on preparing for a no-deal Brexit.

It added that preparedness for a civil emergency must be treated in “much the same way as we treat a hostile state”.

More than 235,000 people died from illnesses involving COVID-19 up to the end of 2023, while the inquiry also recognised the terrible damage done by the pandemic to the economy, children’s education and mental health and to the NHS.

In the foreword of the 217-page report, the first since the inquiry was launched two years ago, Lady Hallett added: “There must be radical reform. Never again can a disease be allowed to lead to so many deaths and so much suffering.”

Identifying what she described as “significant flaws” in planning for Covid, Lady Hallett, whose inquiry has already cost £100 million, said “the U.K. had prepared for the wrong pandemic” and plans to deal with a flu outbreak were “inadequate for a global pandemic of the kind that struck”.

The report said that there was a “lack of adequate leadership, coordination and oversight” from Ministers who were not presented with enough options and “failed to challenge sufficiently” the advice they did receive from officials and advisers. …

She said there were “fatal strategic flaws” in assessing the risks and a sole pandemic strategy dating back to 2011 and based on influenza was “outdated and lacked adaptability”.

“It was virtually abandoned on its first encounter with the pandemic,” the report said. “It focused on only one type of pandemic, failed adequately to consider prevention or proportionality of response, and paid insufficient attention to the economic and social consequences of pandemic response.”

The 2011 strategy had not been updated to investigate the dangers posed by coronaviruses that had already struck in Asia including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

Read More: Civil Service “Groupthink”, Brexit and Planning for Flu Blamed for U.K. Pandemic Failures