Covid lockdown should have started two weeks earlier – scientist tells inquiry

Covid-19 deaths in the UK during the first wave of the pandemic could have been reduced if the UK went into lockdown just two weeks earlier, the UK Covid-19 Inquiry has heard.

A lockdown should have been called on March 9, 2020 instead of two weeks later on March 23, a Government scientist has said.

Professor Steven Riley, who works for the UK Health Security Agency but was working at Imperial College London at the time, said that data has since shown that people began to alter their behaviour on or around March 16, a few days ahead of the stay at home order.

But he said that government action should have been taken sooner.

“My view is that the first national period of stringent social distancing (lockdown) should have been introduced on or around 9 March 2020,” he wrote in his witness statement to the inquiry.

Asked to elaborate, he told the inquiry: “Once we had lab confirmed deaths in ICUs (intensive care units) with no travel history, no obvious connections to any out of country social networks, even a handful of those would indicate that we would be rapidly progressing in our epidemic.”

He added: “We’ve got a lot of data about how social mixing changed over this period and actually on or around March 16 seems to be when everybody did start to change their behaviour.

“So I think the best way to talk about this is to say: had we achieved that rapid reduction in mixing earlier than the 16th then the peak height would have been lower, and the area under the curve for the first wave would have been less, and potentially quite a bit less.

“And the area under the curve is proportional to the number of deaths in a very kind of crude but useful way.”

The World Health Organisation declared a global pandemic on March 11, 2020.

It comes as evidence submitted to the inquiry by a leading think tank suggests that the NHS and social care in the UK is still “highly vulnerable to future shocks” to the system.

The Health Foundation said in a statement that a “lack of health service capacity constrained the response to Covid-19”.

“Without sustained investment in increasing resilience, response to future health threats are likely to be similarly hampered,” it said.

The UK entered the pandemic with fewer doctors, nurses, hospital beds and equipment compared to similar countries, the think tank said.

Meanwhile, funding growth for the NHS was “severely constrained” prior to the pandemic.

“The pre-existing constraints in our health and care system risk prolonging the recovery of services after the pandemic and, without sustained investment, leaves the UK highly vulnerable to future shocks,” the authors wrote.

Meanwhile, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists accused the Government of not always adequately considering the needs of pregnant women during the pandemic.

In its witness statement to the inquiry, the college cited confusing messages to pregnant women during the early phases of the pandemic.

The college also said that the strong “stay at some” messaging had an impact on a number of pregnant women, with anecdotal evidence showing that many skipped important routine appointments or did not seek help when they felt that their babies’ movements were reduced.

“Studies looking at the early months of the pandemic show an increase in adverse outcomes (stillbirth, for example) in women who were not infected with Covid-19, and that this could have been linked to a reluctance to attend hospital settings,” the college said in its statement.

“It is critical that lessons are learnt for the future around ensuring that the unique health information needs of pregnant women are met, and to protect pregnant women’s confidence in, and access to, health services.”

Copyright (c) PA Media Ltd. 2023, All Rights Reserved. Picture (c) Ben Birchall / PA.