Management of the pandemic: the British government responsible for a historic "failure"

A damning parliamentary report released Tuesday, October 12, claims that the UK government and its scientific advisers made serious mistakes and accumulated significant delays in dealing with the onset of the pandemic,

. The study, carried out by two parliamentary committees after months of hearings, says Boris Johnson's government has

taken a

instead of more drastic measures. This

decision, which made the United Kingdom one of the countries most affected in Europe by the coronavirus with almost 138.00 dead, is due in particular to the opinions of scientists who advised Downing Street, the report says.

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Until March 23, the ministers

(sought to)

in the population rather than completely stop its spread

The scientists making up the group responsible for advising the government were

on March 13

.

It is

that it took them so long to realize that full containment was necessary, say the parliamentarians, even with overwhelming evidence, such as a model from Imperial College London who claimed that 'an unchecked epidemic could lead to 500,000 deaths, showing that containment was

, said the deputies.

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The latter also castigated the decision not to test the elderly leaving the hospital before they returned to their retirement home and affirmed that certain measures (curfew at 10 p.m. for pubs, ban on outdoor children's sport) were not scientifically based.

such as the immunization program, said in a joint statement Greg Clark and Jeremy Hunt, chairmen of the two committees responsible for the report,

.