Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Delay ‘caused deaths’
and of deaths. I think everyone would accept now, in retrospect, that if we’d gone for lockdown a couple of weeks earlier, that would have greatly reduced the numbers of hospitalisations and deaths.”
And Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to the Government, added: “The response has not just been tardy.
“It has been totally disrespectful of British lives.”
The Government is believed to have resolved some kind of lockdown would be necessary during a Cobra meeting on March 14, after experts warned its Sage advisory group that up to 250,000 could die without the drastic measure.
The new back-dated modelling, published in a Sunday Times Insight investigation, estimates UK infections were doubling every three days in late February and early March. On March 3, there were about 14,000 infections. By March 14, there were 200,000. And on March 23, such large numbers were doubling that infections are estimated to have hit 1.5 million. And according to the data, no other large European nation let infections get so high before locking down.
Meanwhile, people were told to carry on. More than 60,000 racegoers flocked to the first day of Cheltenham Festival on March 10. And on March 11, 3,000 fans came from Spain to watch Liverpool play Atlético Madrid in the Champions League.
Only two days earlier, the Government’s chief scientist, Sir Patrick Vallance, had said mass gatherings “don’t actually make much difference”.
But Edge Health, which analyses data for the NHS, estimated the events were linked to 41 and 37 extra deaths respectively at nearby hospitals between 25 and 35 days later.
Racehorse owner Paul Townend, 61, of Stratford-upon-avon, died in Warwick Hospital. Widow Geraldine fears the failure to lock down sooner cost him his life. She said: “I don’t know why we were so late. Other countries were in lockdown well before us. The writing was on the wall.”
Responding to the investigation, the Government said: “Our strategy has been designed at all times to protect our NHS and save lives.”