‘Chaotic’ response led to more Covid deaths

Ex-British PM in hot water for ‘indecision’

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Hallett: Lockdowns 'too little, too late'

Former British prime minister Boris Johnson oversaw a toxic, chaotic and dithering response to the Covid pandemic, with a delay to locking the country down resulting in about 23,000 more deaths, a report by a public inquiry concluded on Thursday.

Britain recorded more than 230,000 deaths from Covid, a similar death rate tothe United States and Italy but higher than elsewhere in western Europe, and it is still recovering from the economic consequences.

An inquiry, which Mr Johnson ordered in May 2021, delivered a blistering assessment of his government's response to Covid, criticising his indecisive leadership, lambasting his Downing Street office for breaking its own tules and castigating his top adviser Dominic Cummings.

“There was a toxic and chaotic culture at the centre of the UK government during the pandemic,’ the inquiry chair, former judge Heather Hallett, said in her report.

Ms Hallett said if earlier action had been taken to prevent the spread of the virus, lockdown might have been avoided altogether. But she said the failure to act made it unavoidable.