Yesterday the report into the COVID enquiry was published and it could reasonably be described as scathing. All four UK governments failed to appreciate the scale of the threat posed by COVID-19 or the urgency of the response the pandemic required, a damning report published on Thursday has claimed. Baroness Heather Hallett, the chair of the inquiry, described the response to the pandemic as ‘too little, too late’. Tens of thousands of lives could have been saved during the first wave of COVID-19 had a mandatory lockdown been introduced a week earlier, the inquiry also found. Noting how a ‘lack of urgency’ made a mandatory lockdown ‘inevitable’, the report references modelling data to claim there could have been 23,000 fewer deaths during the first wave in England had it been introduced a week earlier. The UK government first introduced advisory restrictions on 16 March 2020, including self-isolation, household quarantine and social distancing. Had these measures been introduced sooner, the report states, the mandatory lockdown which followed from 23 March might not have been necessary at all.The report says lockdown could have been avoided if steps such as social distancing and isolating those with symptoms along with members of their household had been introduced earlier than mid-March 2020. But by the time ministers took action it was already too late and a lockdown was inevitable, it says. By the end of January 2020 it ‘should have been clear that the virus posed a serious and immediate threat’, while February 2020 was ‘a lost month’ and the lack of urgency overall in government was ‘inexcusable’, the inquiry found. Voluntary measures were brought in on 16 March 2020, followed by the full stay-at home lockdown seven days late. But lockdown a week earlier could have saved thousands of lives. Bringing in lockdown a week earlier on 16 March would have meant 23,000 fewer deaths in England in the first wave, modelling suggests. This would have equated to 48% fewer deaths in the first wave. But the report does not suggest the overall death toll for the pandemic – 227,000 in the UK by the time it was declared over in 2023 – would have been reduced by an earlier lockdown. That is very difficult to tell, as it depends on a variety of other factors that could have reduced or increased the number of deaths as the pandemic progressed. Even at the time, there was commentary to the effect that the government appeared to be dithering and, of course, a Conservative government led by Boris Johnson was forced to consider bringing in a dramatic increase in state activity over the lives of ordinary citizens. But this is a case where political ideology took precedence over action to forestall the pandemic. It is true to say that all governments all over the globe were forced into activities and policies to meet a threat which was totally out of their experience and where the scientific evidence was still evolving. But there are families all over the country who lost their loved ones and were not even allowed under the funeral restrictions to bid their loved ones a proper and dignified farewell. At the time, Meg and I were walking down to Sanders Park just over a kilometre away from us and we witnessed, on at least two occasions, elderly people being transported into the backs of ambulances and tearful relatives having to wave goodbye to their relatives as the ambulance departed. There was collateral damage as well. Our good friend, Clive, who played his trumpet at out 50th wedding anniversary celebrations, was receiving some chemotherapy which held his advancing leukaemia at bay but when this treatment ceased, as Clive could no longer attend the outpatients department of our local hospital, then his life was cut short but not by COVID itself.
We had a bit of domestic drama this morning with which we could have done without. My Droitwich friend and I thought that the house felt a little cold and when we investigated why this should be the case, we discovered that the central heating boiler was completely shut down and unresponsive, with not even a display on the display panel. After urgent consultation with my son who was down in Watford, we checked over all of the evident things such as the water pressure being too low and making the boiler shut down automatically to checking the RCB (Residual Circuit Breaker) to see whether a circuit had been flipped. Our normal central heating firm who are just down the road and who actually installed the boiler seem less and less responsive these days so my son gave me the contact details of a central heating engineer who works on his own and who was excellent at servicing my son’s installation. After a telephone call and the transmission of some of my details via a text message, I was delighted that within a couple of hours the engineer turned up and, as it turned out, he was scheduled to make another visit in a village just down the road. He diagnosed a blown fuse and then whilst he had the boiler all made accessible, he gave it a service and could not find any evident cause for the blown fuse. He checked out the other parts of our ‘combi system’ and, in general, gave a service that could only be described as excellent in every way. As my friend and I were feeling pretty cold as the boiler had been out of action for at least 24 hours and the whole house had cooled down on one of the coldest days of the year, my friend who is an excellent cook and enjoys cooking, made a super brunch for the two of us which actually helped to sustain us for most of the day. My friend and I had to re-schedule our work and non-work activities for the rest of the day so I arranged some heating via one of our portable oil heaters in our dining room and my friend could carry on doing her professional work for most of the rest of the day until the time for her to pick up one of her sons from the school down the road. My friend had had a rather difficult video-call meeting with an American ‘boss’ of hers who seemed to be making all kinds of unreasonable demands so I managed to calm my friend down after she was pretty incandescent after her transatlantic calls. So this is the reason why we are such good friends because we help each other to negotiate some of the annoying tribulations that come our way. For the next two weekends, my friend has other commitments in London with work colleagues but we are seizing the opportunities that are open to us so we made some plans to see each other over the weekend to which I am evidently looking forward.