That Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock should be prosecuted for the avoidable Covid deaths

[LlynTegid]

The part 2 report of the Covid inquiry finds that at least 20,000 deaths were avoidable, had restrictions come in a week earlier.

Various other findings confirming the failures of Mr Johnson and Mr Hancock.

I think they should face criminal charges, such as corporate manslaughter given government is an employer. AIBU

Missing COBRA meetings

Nothing to do with hindsight

Its just common sense, anyone could tell thats what needed to be done

And yes the lock down was tough, it was tough for sen mums in particular, but deadness is tougher, sorry 😕

I do wonder how many died due to other diseases who couldnt get help because of the number of people suffering badly from covid

By the time the first lockdown started, many many people and companies had already set staff WFH. I know mine did. So it was blindingly obvious what was needed and it happened too late.

Deaths could also have been avoided had the findings of the emergency response Exercise Cygnus been properly implemented. So that also involves minister for health at that time.

Exactly.

“Mr Johnson should have appreciated sooner that this was an emergency that required prime ministerial leadership to inject urgency into the response,” concludes the inquiry, chaired by the retired judge and cross-bench peer Heather Hallett.

This was explained in part by the PM “acting in accordance with his own optimistic disposition” and accepting assurances that everything necessary was being done. Many of these assurances came from Matt Hancock, the health secretary, described by the report as having a reputation “for overpromising and underdelivering”.

Prevention of deaths by Covid was not the only thing that mattered. The inquiry(Though I agree with those who think that it’s a waste of money) covers the devastating effects of lockdown too. The rise in child abuse, domestic abuse, mental health issues, the devastation to the economy, detrimental effects on child development, carers etc all deserved real consideration too and should not have been dismissed as they were.

Well he wouldn't have contributed anything worthwhile if he had gone. the man is lazy arrogant public school arse, As for Sunak maybe if he had Sky Television as a kid he might have known about life outside his entitled world.

.Many of same mistakes then "inexcusably" repeated

So many social media "experts giving their opinion on what they think should have happened. Nobody knew because nothing of the like had happened before. Would you still be of the same opinion if Labour had been in power? What would 2 tier Kier have done differently?

Is that it? Completely agree. I bet most of it will be forgotten anyway if another virus happens, the damage to dc in lockdown etc.

I disagree. If you don’t examine and learn lessons, AND, importantly, create the best emergency response plans, what hope would there be for the next time.

They shouldn't be dismissed

But during disaster times people's mental health tends to suffer?!

If there were a war, I wouldnt want nigel farage (who wouldve led us there 😒) to say 'welp, cant send people to live in the countryside due to the side effects, best they just roam around cities unprotected

Lock down was a necessary protective measure, and the consequences of it matter but they must not be seen as proof that we shouldn't have had the lock downs imo

He would have attended the COBRA meetings for starters.

Ordinary people can be jailed for lying about who was driving a speeding car. Politicians like Blair and Johnson can tell much bigger lies, and get rewarded with knighthoods and millions in the bank.

The lockdowns were shit, but they don’t anger me as much as the government’s strategy of “it’s nothing to worry about” straight to deliberately frightening the pants off the public, gaslighting us every step of the way, totally bypassing parliamentary scrutiny, blocking all debate, using boiling frog methods to make us accept prolonged lockdowns “just three more weeks, three more weeks, we can turn this virus around in twelve weeks, normalish by Christmas, significant normality by Easter…”

I would have had much more respect for the government if they had said “we don’t know how long lockdown will last. We are very aware that it will cause huge damage to your businesses, and to your children’s mental health. We will endeavour to keep it as short as possible.” And then “it is clear that we cannot control the virus. Further lockdowns will cause much more harm than good, so the sensible thing to do is to protect the vulnerable, and have society function as normal.”

But because of the way they handled it, I will never trust any government again for the rest of my life, especially not with dangerous tools such as war, and digital ID. I am certain that if digital ID has been in place in 2020, the government would have used it to restrict people’s movements and purchases.

It was when they allowed the Cheltenham festival to go ahead that I remember realising they were clueless. Anybody could see that this mass event should not have happened but they refused to cancel it. Totally incompetent and influenced by their private, capitalist buddies who didn’t want to lose money.

It was a completely new situation and no-one knew what was going to happen. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I would like to know exactly how they’ve come to that figure of extra people who died.

They didn’t really have a crystal ball did they, and were dealing with a unique event. I’m surprised we’ve wasted so much money on the enquiry tbh. Could you have done a better job governing?

They should have been prosecuted for all the abuse of contracts as well.

It's always "lessons will be learned "
Problem is they never are learned, usually in cases of children being murdered by a parent/carer (gone off topic slightly)

OP what finding specifically is it you're commenting on, have you got a link?

Even on the few posts already here, there are disagreements on how things should have been done, so no I don't agree they should be prosecuted. I thought at the time we should do lock down and it was too late once the virus was spreading. Now I feel we sacrificed our children for our elderly and clinically vulnerable, when we should have had them shield and had schools open as normal. We would all be better planners if we could see the future.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-covid-19-inquiry-core-decision-making-and-political-governance-modules-2-2a-2b-2c-report

So you would have taken that decision would you? Closed workplaces and schools? Shut down the economy? Isolated people in their homes, leaving thousands prey to abusers, loneliness, fear and depression?

Hardly a decision to be taken lightly. Isn't hindsight a wonderful thing !! And talk is very cheap.

I don't think they got it right but at the time, they were dealing with the unknown. I'm not so arrogant that I feel able to criticise them. I honestly don't know what I would have done.

Blaming people is pointless. Learning from what happened is much more important.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing

Quite. One could argue that it could have been far worse if they'd left it another week, so they actually saved many lives by bring it in when they did. Nobody on the planet knew how to deal with the pandemic. You can't prosecute people for taking a decision in those circumstances. You can't be proved to have been negligent when you are doing your best to cope with an unknown quantity.

As it happens, my own view is that they should have acted far sooner than even the week before. When you live on an island, it is fairly easy to stop all comings and goings by air and sea if you really need to. But if they had done so, they'd have been criticised for that as well, so they couldn't win really.

At thee we time we didn’t know that much about the virus we were looking into the unknown and no one has a crystal ball. I just wonder when it said 23,000 lives would be saved whether this would have been short term, many of the older people in homes had underlying health conditions. Would this earlier lockdown have extended their life for a short period. I am still if the view that we should not have had a lockdown and although I am not a Boris Johnson fan actually agree with the more liberal approach he wished to follow. I feel the longer impact on young people and the nations mindset is a great concern, young people confined to the house for months, their mental health spiralling downwards.

I am not a medic or scientist, however, listening to what was happening in China and then Italy
it was obvious to me what was coming. I started shielding 2 weeks before the first lockdown. I think that the enquiry is important to understand the failings for next time.
Johnson, Hancock and Cummings were a huge disaster and had prioritised focused elsewhere. I like many lost loved ones and to hear that the COBR meetings were ignored or missed is criminal.