‘We weren’t ready, we’re not ready’ – What we discovered from week 1 of COVID Inquiry

We weren’t ready; we’re not ready – that’s what professional witnesses and core individuals of the UK’s COVID-19 Inquiry have claimed in its first week.

As the hearings began, bereaved households of a number of the 227,000 individuals who have died with COVID gathered outdoors the identical Victorian-era Dorland House constructing in north London that heard from the households of Grenfell fireplace victims, grieving households as soon as once more calling for solutions and accountability.

They got here from throughout the UK, wearing crimson and holding photographs of their family members, united of their grief however every with their very own heartbreaking story of loss.

Together, they mirrored an unequal and at occasions unorganised response to an unprecedented menace.

Inside the cramped and crowded listening to room, inquiry chair Baroness Hallett paid tribute to the dignified vigil, and mentioned she is going to reply three key questions: “Was the UK properly prepared? Was the response appropriate? Can we learn lessons for the future?”

The inquiry’s lead counsel gave his personal reply to the primary of these.

Referring to the federal government’s COVID-19 motion plan printed on 3 March 2020, which claimed the UK was “well prepared” in a approach that “would offer substantial protection to the public”, Hugo Keith KC mentioned: “Even at this stage, before hearing the evidence, it is apparent that we might not have been very well prepared at all.”

Mr Keith produced the federal government’s workflow for pandemic preparedness and response – a muddled tangle of traces, arrows and directions described by Sam Jacobs, representing the Trade Union Congress, as: “A visual and striking representation of a fragmented system which looks much more like a bowl of spaghetti than a clear and coordinated framework for a cogent national response.”

In follow, regional well being officers say that plan meant a top-down method that left them in the dead of night, studying about new insurance policies and steering concurrently members of the general public, on the every day 5pm broadcasts.

The Association for Public Health Directors mentioned: “It is widely felt that the local voice was not wanted or heard.”

The Department for Health mentioned that it might not say it did all the things proper or that it might make the identical choices once more with the good thing about hindsight.

However, their authorized representatives urged Baroness Hallett to not impose “retroscope” decision-making.

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Ministers mentioned repeatedly throughout the pandemic that the federal government was “following the science”, however the Government Office for Science mentioned Sir Patrick Vallance’s insistence that minutes and papers from SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) have been printed meant: “SAGE was given particular prominence in the minds of the media and the public in relation to policy…This meant that other areas of advice not made public were not subjected to the same level of debate and scrutiny.”

According to early professional witnesses, whereas the UK was as soon as thought-about a world chief in planning for a possible influenza pandemic, it hadn’t tailored to the growing menace of rising infectious and zoonotic illnesses.

A state of affairs detailed in UK Health Security Agency chief govt Professor Jenny Harries’ written assertion to the inquiry: “In 2018 on a UK national level, Public Health England identified there had been a gap in national strategy across governments focusing on infectious diseases…The gap had been apparent since 2002.

“Having recognised this gap, work was then started in 2018 to address that issue of a strategy for infectious diseases.”

That report was printed within the autumn of 2019 simply months earlier than the beginning of the pandemic.

Katherine Hammond, the previous director of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat, was requested whether or not she agreed that we have been blindsided by the looks of coronavirus, she replied: “I don’t think blindsided is the word that I would use, it certainly… the pandemic that happened in 2020 was different from the reasonable worst-case scenario produced by experts which focused on a flu pandemic.”

As COVID-19 reached our shores, the UK was left with an outdated plan for the wrong virus.

Cambridge University epidemiologist Dr Charlotte Hammer mentioned: “Any plan for a respiratory outbreak will be better than none, a dedicated plan is better than one for something else, but I think… there were certain difficulties with this.”

Professor Jimmy Whitworth who appeared alongside Dr Hammer on the inquiry agreed: “By the middle of January 2020 people in the international public health community were aware that this was out of the ordinary.

“This outbreak wasn’t only a small cluster that was going to die away…The UK was very sturdy in influenza, as a result of that was on the highest of the chance register within the UK.”

One of the impacts of this coverage, when mixed with growing well being inequalities and reducing well being requirements within the UK earlier than the pandemic, was that makes an attempt to mitigate essentially the most susceptible components of the inhabitants struggling disproportionately weren’t profitable.

A joint report by Professor Clare Bambra and Professor Sir Michael Marmot discovered that folks from decrease socio-economic backgrounds, greater charges of deprivation, and folks from ethnic minorities have been extra more likely to be severely impacted by a respiratory pandemic.

Those declining well being requirements had been kick-started by a decade of austerity measures and elevated demand on the NHS, which has practically doubled between 2009 and the pandemic.

Preparations for a no-deal Brexit, Operation Yellowhammer, additionally side-tracked Cabinet Office assets which might have been pandemic preparedness and resilience.

Read extra:
UK ‘prepared for the wrong pandemic’, COVID inquiry told
COVID inquiry: Everything you need to know
Baroness Hallett: Who is the chair of the inquiry?
Bereaved families call for greater transparency

Other professional witnesses have been extra blunt.

Professor David Alexander who specialises in danger and catastrophe discount mentioned present civil contingencies and emergency planning buildings don’t maintain the inhabitants protected: “I think the bottom line of all of this is do you think that the British government, within the limits of his competency, keeps the public safe? I fear my answer to that is no, or not sufficiently.”

With regards to the federal government’s “Resilience Framework” printed in December 2022, he mentioned: “There is no mention of gender… disabilities… elderly… or ethnic and cultural minorities, and yet all of these are essential issues that need to be dealt with.”

A criticism supported by those that have helped form authorities preparations. Bruce Mann who led on Civil Contingencies within the Cabinet Office till 2009 was requested if radical innovation and alter is required: “Yes in structures, and yes in the detail in which plans, procedures…especially from central government are followed through in detail to make sure that they will work.”

There will likely be larger headlines and extra consideration on the inquiry subsequent week when key names like former prime minister David Cameron, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt MP, and Chief Medical Officer Sir Chris Whitty seem earlier than the inquiry.

However, a senior lawyer on the inquiry advised Sky News he believed these first 4 days have been crucial for highlighting failures in pandemic preparedness, resilience, and ahead planning – the important thing focus of this primary module, forward of what they described because the “inevitable political mudslinging”.