In 2002, Sars, a dangerous coronavirus, spread across the world with a fatality rate of around 10%. Although it was contained relatively quickly, east Asian countries learned from this experience and updated their pandemic preparedness plans. Their governments wanted to be ready if the virus returned. On the other side of the world, the UK didn’t react or adapt. Complacency was at play, especially with the assumption that Britain was one of the most prepared countries in the world for a pandemic.

The consequence, as Lady Hallett’s first report from the Covid inquiry notes, is that the UK government failed in its basic responsibility to its citizens of keeping them safe. The UK had too many preventable deaths, not only from Covid, but also from the shutdown of health services and a long lockdown that would have been unnecessary had public health systems been in place.

There’s not much positive in the report about government preparedness in the years before 2020. It points to the lack of a containment strategy: why was so little planning or thought given to public health infrastructure – namely test, trace, isolate – prior to 2020? Why did officials initially........

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