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A review on the UK government’s handling of the pandemic will be released today and accuse ministers of “gambling with the future of the UK” by relaxing restrictions over Christmas.
In a scathing review, parliamentarians from various parties have made more than 40 recommendations to the government “so that its preparation and response can be improved in the future.”
The report says the government’s approach has been “based on the false choice between saving lives or saving jobs and the economy” and has led the UK “to mourn the greater number of lives lost to the pandemic, while at the same time it is preparing for one of the deepest recessions in its aftermath. “
Almost 60,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the UK since the start of the pandemic, according to government figures, the seventh highest number of deaths per population globally.
The report also accuses ministers of taking an “English exceptionalism” approach by failing to look at other countries that had already handled similar epidemics.
“There is no doubt that there was a delay in seeking advice from those countries, including Italy, where this experience had already happened,” he will say.
In addition to working with other countries, the report recommends that the UK government “work more closely and in collaboration with decentralized nations.”
“Each delegated administration must retain the capacity and ability to respond to its own needs when necessary, but within the framework of an agreed four-country strategy,” he adds.
He warned that his recommendations are now “more important than ever” as the government is “playing with the future of the UK by relaxing restrictions over the Christmas period and returning to a tiered system that we know has not worked before.”
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This is the first interim report from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on COVID-19 after it was created in July to conduct a rapid investigation.
The group has heard 65 witnesses in more than 200 hours of live evidence sessions, with just under 3,000 separate evidence presentations.
Labor MP Layla Moran, one of the chairpersons of the APPG, wrote in the foreword to the report: “The central objective of the APPG on the coronavirus is to save lives, but as this report makes clear, saving lives is saving lives. means of subsistence, that the government must listen and adapt.
“We write this report in the sincere hope that by working together with scientists, civil society and individuals, we can help the government do what we need it to do in this time of national crisis: succeed.”
