Pandemic akin to war, lawyer tells Covid inquiry

The pandemic was a "confused play akin to war", the lawyer for the Department of Health and Social Care has told the Covid inquiry.

Fiona Scolding KC said the section had been faced with a superior of "hugely unpalatable options" and decisions had been "finely balanced".

With the payment of hindsight, immoderate of those decisions mightiness person been different, she added.

The nationalist enquiry connected the UK's effect to Covid has finished its 2nd day.

The archetypal portion of the enquiry - called Resilience and preparedness - volition perceive from cardinal politicians, civilian servants, scientists, unions, wellness and attraction organisations, arsenic good arsenic groups representing victims and their relatives.

Over the adjacent six weeks, astir 70 radical are expected to instrumentality the basal connected this subject.

The pb lawyer for the inquiry, Hugo Keith KC, described the "death, misery and incalculable loss" caused by the virus, saying the UK whitethorn not person been good prepared "at all".

On Wednesday, successful her opening statement, Ms Scolding said the authorities would not reason it had got everything close successful its effect to Covid.

"Contrary decisions could rationally person been made resulting successful a antithetic acceptable of outcomes," she said.

But the pandemic had been the "greatest situation ever faced by the NHS and attraction sector".

And it was indispensable "to recognise the discourse of the clip was precise antithetic to what we cognize now".

Ms Scolding asked the enquiry "not to enforce a retroscope connected determination making" but described investigating and diagnostics arsenic a "significant weakness" successful the aboriginal portion of the pandemic, compared with that successful immoderate different countries.

Matthew Hill, from the Government Office for Science, which besides represents existent and erstwhile main technological advisers, told the enquiry the UK had had different areas of weakness erstwhile the pandemic started, including the:

There were questions implicit the concern successful public-health infrastructure earlier Covid and "whether it had responded efficaciously to erstwhile pandemic threats".

And it was important to support advances made during the pandemic, specified arsenic they mode information was collected and presented.

The relation of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), scientists who met regularly during the pandemic, was to supply autarkic technological proposal to the UK government, not to determine policy, which was the occupation of politicians and determination makers, taking into relationship different factors similar economics and education, Mr Hill said.

"It is for them, and not the experts, to measurement the competing factors against 1 another, marque the trade-offs and travel to determination connected policy," helium added.

The archetypal 2 experts questioned connected Wednesday day - some epidemiologists - said a coronavirus had already jumped to humans connected a important standard doubly successful the 21st Century, successful the signifier of terrible acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers).

And it had been "a tenable bet", earlier 2020, different 1 mightiness follow, infectious-diseases adept and erstwhile prof of planetary nationalist wellness Jimmy Whitworth said.

By mid-January 2020, radical successful the planetary public-health assemblage had been alert the Covid-19 outbreak had been "out of the ordinary", helium said.

"It wasn't going to dice distant - it was thing bigger than that," Mr Whitworth said.

And by extremity of January, radical successful nationalist wellness had been precise wide it had been "an impending question that was coming to UK".

"For those of america who had memories of Sars, the parallels were thing that gave america shivers", Mr Whitworth added.

Asked astir the dangers of a microorganism being leaked, deliberately oregon accidentally, from a laboratory, Cambridge University chap successful emerging infectious diseases Dr Charlotte Hammer said she was alert of 4 incidents involving the Sars virus.

But erstwhile it came to controlling an outbreak erstwhile it had started to infect thousands of people, the virus's origins mattered "very little".

What is the UK Covid-19 inquiry?

The UK saw 1 of the worst archetypal waves of Covid successful Europe, successful outpouring 2020.

In April and May that year, astir 160,000 deaths were registered - 60,000 much than expected, based connected the years conscionable earlier the pandemic.

But by that winter, the UK had been overtaken by galore countries successful Eastern Europe that had seemed to flight the archetypal wave.

The UK's Office for National Statistics has continued to analyse these figures for Europe and, arsenic of July past year, enactment the UK successful the mediate of the pack.

According to Department of Health figures, 227,321 radical crossed the UK died with Covid recorded connected their decease certificate.

Covid vaccines person prevented galore deaths and superior unwellness from the microorganism - much than 151 cardinal doses person been fixed successful the UK.