Covid-19 inquiry told Brexit hit UK’s pandemic preparations; victims’ relatives lash out
- The first phase of the inquiry is due to focus on the UK’s resilience and preparedness in the face of the global health emergency
- Relatives of Covid-19 victims have also taken aim at the investigation saying it will be a “farce” if bereaved families are not able to testify
The UK government’s focus on Brexit seriously hampered pandemic planning, an inquiry examining the country’s handing of the Covid-19 health emergency was told on Tuesday.
Hugo Keith, lead lawyer to the Covid-19 inquiry which is holding its first public session, said the country’s departure from the European Union had “required an enormous amount of planning and preparation”.
“It is clear that such planning, from 2018 onwards, crowded out and prevented some or perhaps a majority of the improvements that central government itself understood were required to be made to resilience planning and preparedness.”
Keith said the coronavirus pandemic had brought “death and illness on an unprecedented scale” in modern Britain. He said that Covid-19 has been recorded as a cause of death for 226,977 people in the UK
“The key issue is whether that impact was inevitable,” Keith said. “Were those terrible consequences inexorable, or were they avoidable or capable of mitigation?”
Relatives of Covid-19 victims have also taken aim at the investigation saying it will be a “farce” if bereaved families are not able to testify.