PM’s dithering cost us in lives
IF we’re lucky the best case scenario coming out of winter next year could be a total Covid death toll of around 160,000. But it could well be much higher.
Sadly, such tragic loss of life was needless. We are an island nation and could have stopped the threat of Covid before it hit our shores but we were too slow.
The Government should have locked down earlier and for longer last year but were too worried about the economy.
They could have followed the lead of Asian countries in dealing with such diseases by developing a working test and trace system much earlier, and urgently buying more PPE.
Instead they gave billions of pounds worth of contracts to suppliers with no experience in medical supplies. And they could and should have cared about the vulnerable in care settings. This report is scathing, and rightly so.
Ashley Smith, March, Cambs
The MPs’ report into the Government’s handling of the pandemic didn’t highlight the full scale of the shambles. Let’s not forget the PPE scandal with our brave frontline NHS staff and care home staff scrambling for proper protective equipment. What’s more, Johnson was late to lock down three times and failed to close our borders. There was also the confusing messaging about avoiding the spread of the virus. Hearing ex-health secretary and committee chairman Jeremy Hunt describing the response as a
game of two halves sums things up. What an insult it is to those who’ve lost loved ones.
G Hunt, Derby
At last some truth about the Government’s handling of the pandemic. The report condemns their planning and preparedness, late lockdowns, failed test and trace chaos, moving patients from hospitals to social care without testing, lack of PPE – and let’s not forget the cronyism of contracting – and having no grasp of the significance of health inequalities.
And what do we get as a response? “We will learn the lessons”. I would be fuming at hearing this if I was a bereaved relative. By the way, the successful vaccine rollout was not because of ministers but because of NHS staff.
T Maunder, Leeds
It was a typical Tory response to the Covid report, trying to absolve the Government of blame – numerous mistakes were made and they mentioned the scientists at practically every opportunity. As far as I remember, the Government was always two
to three weeks late in implementing the scientists’ advice and is therefore responsible for the loss of life being in the hundreds instead of the tens of thousands.
Unfortunately, this appears to be still happening.
Bill Atkinson, Washington Tyne and Wear
So, as this scathing report comes out, Boris Johnson has taken the coward’s way out by running off to Marbella instead of being here to explain his failure to act quickly enough. Imposing an earlier lockdown could have prevented 20,000 deaths.
Any decent prime minister would resign in the wake of such a failure in public health policy, but not Boris who will, no doubt, brazen it out once again.
David Cornes, Bilston, West Mids
Your front page picture of Boris Johnson at his easel (Mirror, October 13), presumably trying to paint over the cracks, made me think of Nero fiddling while Rome was burning. Both ineffectual leaders in a time of crisis. The sooner we have change, the better.