UK government 'failed' public as it prepared for 'wrong pandemic', Covid report finds

The UK government 'failed' the public in preparing for the pandemic despite the outbreak being 'foreseeable', the UK Covid Inquiry said in a damning first report.

The inquiry, which is being chaired by Baroness Heather Hallett, published a 217-page document on Thursday, in which it outlined several "significant flaws" in the government's preparedness for the Covid-19 pandemic, which plunged Britain into lockdown in March 2020 and resulted in more than 200,000 deaths.

The report found that the UK had "prepared for the wrong pandemic" in planning for an outbreak of flu, which was "inadequate for a global pandemic of the kind that struck". The belief that the UK was one of the best-prepared countries in the world to respond to a pandemic was "dangerously mistaken" and in reality, the UK was "ill-prepared", Lady Hallett said in her findings.

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The UK’s "outdated" pandemic plan, written in 2011, lacked adaptability and was "virtually abandoned on its first encounter with the pandemic", the report found.

There was a "damaging absence of focus" on the measures and infrastructure that would be needed to deal with a fast-spreading disease and Lady Hallett said there were "serious errors on the part of the state and serious flaws in our civil emergency systems". She added: "This cannot be allowed to happen again."

The inquiry said it had "no hesitation" in concluding that the "processes, planning and policy of the civil contingencies structures within the UK government and devolved administrations and civil services failed their citizens".

One of the major flaws in the government's pandemic preparation was its failure to build a