Report says UK's slow virus lockdown cost 1000s of lives

LONDON (AP) — The British government waited too long to impose a lockdown in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, missing a chance to contain the disease and leading to thousands of unnecessary deaths, lawmakers concluded Tuesday in a hard-hitting report.

The deadly delay resulted from ministers’ failure to question the recommendations of scientific advisers, resulting in a dangerous level of “groupthink” that caused them to dismiss the more aggressive strategies adopted in East and Southeast Asia, according to the joint report from the House of Commons’ science and health committees.

It was only when Britain’s National Health Service risked being overwhelmed by rapidly rising infections that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government finally ordered a lockdown. in late March 2020

“There was a desire to avoid a lockdown because of the immense harm it would entail to the economy, normal health services and society,’’ the report said. “In the absence of other strategies such as rigorous case isolation, a meaningful test-and-trace operation, and robust border controls, a full lockdown was inevitable and should have come sooner.’’

Cabinet minister Stephen Barclay defended the government's response, saying “decisions were taken on the evidence and the scientific advice at the time.”

“It was an unprecedented pandemic. We were learning about it as we went through, and of course with hindsight, there’s things we know about it now that we didn’t know at the time,” Barclay told British broadcaster Sky News.

The U.K. parliamentary report comes amid frustration with the timetable for a formal public inquiry into the government’s response to COVID-19, which Johnson says will start next spring.

Lawmakers said their inquiry was designed to uncover why Britain...