‘Chaotic and indecisive’: key findings of report on UK’s Covid response under Tories

“Too little too late” is the key finding of Heather Hallett’s second report from the Covid public inquiry, which focused on politicians and the decisions they made at key points during the pandemic. At 760 pages long, there is no shortage of detail on exactly what went wrong and when in the UK during those tumultuous months in 2020 and 2021, and how the actions of those in the heart of power had severe consequences for millions of people. Here are the key points from the inquiry’s findings: There was chaos in No 10 Some of the report’s strongest criticism was directed at the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, and the “toxic and chaotic culture” of his government during its response to the pandemic. Giving evidence, senior civil servant Simon Case said “good people were just being smashed to pieces”, while others claimed there was a sexist culture where “junior women being talked over or ignored”. The inquiry found that former chief adviser Dominic Cummings “materially contributed to the toxic and sexist workplace culture” and “poisoned the atmosphere in 10 Downing Street”, rebuking him for the “offensive, sexualised and misogynistic language” he used in messages. Johnson came under fire for not seeking to “restrain or control” Cummings, and for “intentionally seeking to foster conflict and a chaotic working environment”. The report concluded: “As a result of the poor culture at the centre of the UK government, the quality of advice and decision-making suffered.” Decision-making was too slow The report is unequivocal in its conclusions around decision-making and how if leaders had acted quicker, lives could have been saved. It describes February 2020 as a “lost month” and said that by 12 March 2020 the situation was “little short of calamitous”. If a mandatory lockdown had been imposed a week earlier in March 2020, there would have been about 23,000 fewer deaths, it concluded. During the second wave in September and October 2020, it said that Johnson “repeatedly changed his mind on whether to introduce tougher restrictions and failed to make timely decisions”, and that a second lockdown in England could have been “reduced in length and severity” if he had acted quicker. The report said that in future emergencies, “interventions must be imposed earlier and ‘harder’ than might be considered ideal”, and recommended central taskforces are created in each nation to help with decision-making. It also said there was a “lack of trust” between the prime minister and first ministers of the devolved nations which impacted the UK’s overall response. Vulnerable people weren’t protected The report said a number of key groups who were more at risk from Covid, such as disabled people and people from some ethnic minorities, were not sufficiently protected due to a lack of data and policy failures. The government failed to “act sufficiently speedily to mitigate some risks to disabled people”, the report said, such as by not adding people with Down’s syndrome to the shielded patient list until September 2020. It also criticised the fact that members of the race disparity unit and the government equalities office were redeployed to help with the pandemic response, even though it was known from April 2020 that people from ethnic minority groups were at a heightened risk of becoming infected. Messages were confusing Confusing messaging to the public was a key theme of the report, with Johnson criticised for his “expressions of over-optimism”. The inquiry found that he “failed to convey a proper sense of caution, thereby undermining his government’s public health messaging” on some occasions, such as when he talked about how he had shaken people’s hands in hospital the day before launching a handwashing campaign. The “eat out to help out” campaign, which encouraged people back to bars and restaurants with discounts, “might have contributed to a belief that the pandemic was effectively over, even though the government was aware of the significant risk that there would be further waves of the virus”. It also said the mantra of “following the science” that was used by politicians throughout the pandemic, “downplayed their responsibility for their own decision-making” and suggested scientific advice was being heeded at the cost of all other considerations when that wasn’t true. Finally the report said that rule-breaking by senior government officials, such as Cummings’ trip to Barnard Castle, “undermined public confidence in decision-making and significantly increased the risk of the public failing to adhere to measures designed to protect the population”. Politicians didn’t understand the science The inquiry heard that “many ministers lacked confidence in their ability to understand technical material”, with Johnson in particular singled out for struggling with scientific concepts. In notes from the time, the government’s chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance said Johnson was “bamboozled” and that watching him “get his head around the stats was awful”. Ministers often confused “scenario modelling” – which examined the consequences of worst-case scenarios – with forecasts of what would probably happen, which resulted in reputational damage and modellers being considered “over-pessimistic doom-mongers”. The report recommended a training course on “core scientific concepts” for politicians that could be rolled out at the outset of an emergency. There was no support for experts The inquiry said it was “striking that the burden of providing advice to ministers fell on the shoulders of a few individuals, especially in the devolved nations”. Scientific experts described their workloads as “excessive” and “relentless”, with the inquiry emphasising how most of them were not paid for their advice which they had to fit in around their normal jobs. They were also subjected to “threats and intimidation via social media, emails, phone calls and letters, with Prof Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, assaulted in a park in June 2021. His deputy, Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, said he never expected his family to be threatened with having their throats cut. The inquiry said there was a “real risk that intrusive media coverage, coupled with online abuse, other forms of malicious communication and physical harassment, will dissuade talented people from contributing to the provision of scientific advice”.