‘Never again can a disease be allowed to lead to so many deaths and so much suffering’: Baroness Hallett’s excoriating opening to the Covid-19 Inquiry report in full

Ministers ‘failed their citizens’ by preparing for the wrong pandemic with flawed planning, a damning report by the Covid Inquiry found today.

In her first report, Baroness Heather Hallett, chair of the probe, warned the country was ‘ill prepared for dealing with a catastrophic emergency, let alone the coronavirus pandemic that actually struck’. 

Setting out a list of recommendations for the new Labour Government, as bereaved families gathered outside the hearing in west London, she added: ‘It is not a question of if another pandemic will strike, but when’.

Instead, in her report’s introduction, which spanned almost 2,000 words, she urged for ‘radical reform’ to prevent ‘so many deaths and so much suffering’ from ever happening again.  

Here MailOnline reproduces Baroness Hallett’s excoriating 2,000-word forward in full. 

In her first report, Baroness Heather Hallett (pictured), chair of the probe, warned the country was ‘ill prepared for dealing with a catastrophic emergency, let alone the coronavirus pandemic that actually struck’ 

Boris Johnson (pictured centre), Rishi Sunak and Matt Hancock have all been grilled in eye-opening exchanges during the inquiry that illustrated the infighting at the heart of government. Scientific insights have also been shared by the likes of Chris Whitty (pictured left), Jonathan Van-Tam and Patrick Vallance (pictured right)

‘This is the first report of the UK Covid Inquiry. It examines the state of the UK’s central structures and procedures for pandemic emergency preparedness, resilience and response.

‘The primary duty of the state is to protect its citizens from harm. It is, therefore, the state’s duty to ensure that the UK is as properly prepared to meet threats from a lethal disease as it is from a hostile force. Both are threats to national security.

‘In this case, the threat came from a novel and potentially lethal virus. In late December 2019, a cluster of cases of pneumonia of an unknown origin were detected in the city of Wuhan in the Hubei province of China. 

‘A new virus, a strain of coronavirus, was subsequently identified and named as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). 

The viral pathogen SARS-CoV-2 and the disease that it caused, Covid, spread across the globe.

‘It killed millions of people worldwide and infected many millions more. 

As at March 2024, the World Health Organization stated that there had been more than 774 million confirmed cases and over 7 million deaths reported globally, although the true numbers are likely to be far higher. 

‘The Covid pandemic caused grief, untold misery and economic turmoil. Its impact will be felt for decades to come.

‘The impact of the disease did not fall equally. Research suggests that, in the UK, mortality rates were significantly higher among people with a physical or learning disability and people with pre-existing conditions, such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. 

‘People from some ethnic minority groups and those living in deprived areas had a significantly higher risk of being infected by Covid and dying from it.

‘Beyond the individual tragedy of each and every death, the pandemic placed extraordinary levels of strain on the UK’s health, care, financial and educational systems, as well as on jobs and businesses.

‘As in many other countries, the UK government and the governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were required to take serious and far-reaching decisions about how to contain and respond to the virus. 

‘The 23 March 2020 decision to implement a legally enforced ‘stay at home’ order was hitherto unimaginable.

‘The life of the UK was severely curtailed as the majority of its citizens were confined to home. 

‘Almost every area of public life across all four nations was badly affected. 

‘The hospitality, retail, travel and tourism, arts and culture, and sport and leisure sectors effectively ceased to operate. Even places of worship closed.

‘Levels of mental illness, loneliness, deprivation and exposure to violence at home surged. Children missed out on academic learning and on precious social development.

Setting out a list of recommendations for the new Labour Government, as bereaved families gathered outside the hearing in west London , Baroness Hallett added: ‘It is not a question of if another pandemic will strike, but when’. Pictured, bereaved families outside the Covid Inquiry in London last year

‘The cost, in human and financial terms, of bringing Covid under control has been immense. 

‘Government borrowing and the cost of procurement and of the various job retention, income, loan, sick pay and other support schemes have severely impacted public finances and the UK’s financial health.

‘The impact on the NHS, its operations, its waiting lists and on elective care has been similarly immense. 

‘Millions of patients either did not seek or did not receive treatment and the backlog for treatment has reached historically high levels.

‘Societal damage has been widespread, with existing inequalities exacerbated and access to opportunity significantly weakened.

‘Ultimately, the UK was spared worse by the individual efforts and dedication of health and social care workers and the civil and public servants who battled the pandemic; by the scientists, medics and commercial companies who researched valiantly to produce life-saving treatments and ultimately vaccines; by the local authority workers and volunteers who looked after and delivered food and medicine to elderly and vulnerable people, and who vaccinated the population; and by the emergency services, transport workers, teachers, food and medicinal industry workers and other key workers who kept the country going.

‘Unfortunately, the expert evidence suggests that they will be called upon again. 

‘It is not a question of ‘if’ another pandemic will strike but ‘when’. 

‘The evidence is overwhelmingly to the effect that another pandemic – potentially one that is even more transmissible and lethal – is likely to occur in the near to medium future. 

‘Unless the lessons are learned, and fundamental change is implemented, that effort and cost will have been in vain when it comes to the next pandemic.

‘There must be radical reform. Never again can a disease be allowed to lead to so many deaths and so much suffering.

‘It is into these extreme events and consequences that it is my duty to inquire. 

‘In May 2021, then Prime Minister Boris Johnson MP announced his decision to establish a statutory inquiry to examine the UK’s preparedness and response to the Covid pandemic and learn lessons for the future. 

‘I was appointed Chair of the Inquiry in December 2021.

‘The extremely broad Terms of Reference for this Inquiry were drawn up following formal consultation between the Prime Minister and the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales and the First Minister and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. 

‘There was then an extensive public consultation process.

‘I consulted widely across all four nations, visiting towns and cities in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and speaking, in particular, to a number of bereaved people. 

‘In parallel, the Inquiry team met with representatives of more than 150 organisations in “roundtable” discussions. 

‘In total, the Inquiry received more than 20,000 responses to the consultation.

‘In light of the views expressed, the Inquiry recommended a number of significant changes to the draft Terms of Reference. 

‘These were accepted in full and included explicit acknowledgement of the need to hear about people’s experiences and to consider any disparities in the impact of the pandemic.

‘The unprecedented width and scope of the Terms of Reference therefore commanded public support.

‘I also sought an express mandate to publish interim reports so as to ensure that any urgent recommendations could be published and considered in a timely manner. 

‘It is plainly in the public interest that effective recommendations are made as quickly as possible to ensure that proper emergency preparedness and resilience structures and systems are in place before the next pandemic or national civil emergency.

‘The Terms of Reference reflect the unprecedented complexity of this Inquiry. 

‘It is not an inquiry limited in scope by a single event, a short passage of time or a single policy or finite course of government or state conduct. 

In the Inquiry’s first week, its chief lawyer, Hugo Keith KC, presented the Inquiry with an extraordinarily complicated flow chart detailing the government’s chain of command in helping to protect Brits from future pandemics. The diagram, created by the Inquiry to reflect structures in 2019, links together more than 100 organisations involved in preparing the country for any future infectious threats

‘It is an inquiry into how the gravest and most multi- layered peacetime emergency struck an entire country (in fact, four countries) and how the UK government and devolved administrations responded, across almost the entire range of their decision-making and public functions. 

‘The pandemic and the response spared no part of British life and so there is almost no part of that life excluded from our investigations.

‘I was determined from the outset that this Inquiry would not drag on for years and produce a report or reports long after they had lost any relevance. 

‘The Inquiry has therefore proceeded at great pace.

‘On 21 July 2022, about five months following the ending of Covid-19 legal restrictions on the population of the UK, the Inquiry was formally opened. 

‘I also announced the decision to conduct the Inquiry in modules. The first public hearing, Module 1 (Resilience and preparedness), took place less than a year later, between 13 June and 20 July 2023.

‘The hearing was preceded by an extensive and complex process of obtaining under compulsion potentially relevant documents from a wide range of sources. This material was then examined by the Inquiry team, and more than 18,000 documents were deemed to be relevant and were disclosed to the Core Participants to assist them in their preparation for the hearing.

‘The Module 1 Inquiry team obtained more than 200 witness statements and called 68 factual and expert witnesses from the UK government, the devolved administrations, resilience and health structures, civil society groups and groups representing bereaved people.

‘The public hearing for Module 2 (Core UK decision-making and political governance) then took place between 3 October and 13 December 2023. 

‘The analogous public hearings into the core political and administrative decision-making of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish governments took place, respectively, between 16 January and 1 February 2024, 27 February and 14 March 2024, and 30 April and 16 May 2024.

‘As at the publication date of this Report, Module 3 (Impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on healthcare systems in the four nations of the UK), Module 4 (Vaccines and therapeutics), Module 5 (Procurement), Module 6 (Care sector), Module 7 (Test, trace and isolate), Module 8 (Children and young people) and Module 9 (Economic response) have all been formally opened and are in the course of being prepared for public hearings. 

‘There will also be further hearings into the impact that the pandemic and the response had on various aspects of British life.

‘No inquiry with such a wide scope has ever proceeded with such speed or rigour, or obtained so much relevant documentation in such a relatively limited amount of time. 

‘It is right to say that few countries have established formal legal inquiries investigating the many aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic, let alone inquiries of this scale. 

‘A number of countries, such as Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Australia, have instead instituted independent commissions led by experts in epidemiology, public health, economics and public policy. 

‘Such research commissions may be quicker and cheaper than a UK statutory inquiry, but they are not necessarily legal processes with the force of the law behind them. 

‘Most do not have the powers to compel the production of evidence or the giving of sworn testimony by political and administrative leaders; they are not open to public scrutiny in the same way as this Inquiry; they do not allow bereaved people and other interested groups to participate meaningfully in the process as legal core participants; and they do not have anything like the same scope or depth.

‘It may be thought therefore that a statutory inquiry with extensive powers was the right and only appropriate vehicle for an inquiry considering a national crisis of such scale and intensity, and one involving so much death and suffering. 

‘The people of the UK, but especially bereaved people and those who have otherwise suffered harm, need to know whether anything could reasonably have been done better.

‘If the Inquiry’s recommendations are implemented, the risk of loss and suffering in the future will be reduced, and policy-makers, faced with extraordinarily difficult decisions, will be assisted in responding to a crisis.

‘I want to express my gratitude to all those who have given so much of their time and resources in providing the Inquiry with the voluminous amount of documentary material, to the many people who have provided their assistance through the provision of written statements and sworn evidence, and to all who have shared their experience of the pandemic with the Inquiry through its listening exercise, Every Story Matters. 

‘I would also like to thank the Module 1 team (both secretariat and legal) without whose extraordinarily hard work the Module 1 hearings and this Report would not have been possible.

‘I am also very grateful to the Core Participants and their legal teams, especially the groups representing bereaved people, for their insightful and conscientious contribution to the Inquiry process. 

‘The determination and drive of their clients and representatives, and the skill and experience of their legal teams, continue to be of invaluable assistance to me and to the Inquiry team.

‘The harrowing testimony of loss and grief given by the bereaved witnesses and others who suffered during the pandemic provided a salutary confirmation of the purpose of this Inquiry.’