15 October 2021 This week a report was published which examined the UK’s response to the coronavirus pandemic in England. The Health and Social Care Committee and the Science and Technology Committee, composed of MPs from all parties, highlighted the significant failures in how this public health crisis was handled, as well as drawing out some successes and making recommendations to the UK Government on lessons to be learned. You can read the report in full here. The report criticised the UK’s ‘fatalistic approach’ to the pandemic, as attempts were made to manage the spread of the virus instead of trying to stop it spreading altogether. Other errors in the response to the pandemic were identified, including the lateness of the first lockdown in March 2020, the ‘slow’ and ‘chaotic’ test and trace system, and the underestimation of the risk to the social care sector. Covid-19 shone a light on existing inequalities in UK society. The repo...

This post was originally published on British Institute of Human Rights News .