Now is the time for the Covid inquiry. The government has declared the covid pandemic to be over. Unfortunately we all know that it was a decision based on the government’s popularity over the ongoing saga of “partygate” rather than based on any evidence around infection, sickness, hospital capacity or deaths. 

How to retraumatise a nation

The drip drip of revelations to the press about the culture of drinking and parties at the heart of government has re-traumatised us as a nation. Each time a new party is revealed, people are forced to remember what they were living through during the same time period. The scary conditions we worked through, the business and jobs lost, the hospitalisations, the relatives unvisited, the goodbyes not said or said over Zoom, co-parents missing the birth of their child.  Then the callous government ministers sent out to defend the Prime Minister on the morning news shows; telling us that the party wasn’t a big deal, everyone broke the rules, or the government staff were working in difficult conditions so needed a little relief at the end of a hard day (or seemingly, every Friday). Each time, gas lighting the entire country that we’ve remembered incorrectly the hardships of 2020.  Starting a public inquiry now could be the moment that the country needs to be reminded of the truth of our experience in the pandemic; genuine acknowledgement of the pain people went through and many are still experiencing now whether that is bereavement, post traumatic stress or long covid.

Independent

The covid inquiry needs to be independent of the government. Whilst we saw that the investigation by the civil servant, Sue Gray, was more damning than most of us thought possible, she is still employed by the government and was investigating her colleagues and superiors. Furthermore, the final decision to act on the report was to be taken by the Prime Minister himself.  The covid inquiry needs to be held at a distance, the results need to not be settled in advance (I suspect a government led inquiry would find that the “fast pace” of the “unprecedented situation” means that “mistakes were made” but they were all “in good faith” and no fault could be found with any action). The country needs a moment of pause and reflection, especially if we are about to go into a difficult year with the impact of Brexit, the fuel prices rise and the environmental impact of the Tongan volcano on our food production, just as we cut trade links with our nearest neighbours. We need a moment of truth telling if we are to start healing from the loss and hurt caused by this virus and the institutional response to it.

Wide ranging

Finally, the inquiry needs a broad remit. It needs to be empowered to look at events prior to the pandemic. The Operation Cygnus exercise proved that the NHS was not ready for a pandemic. If the implications of that report had been fully embraced could we have handled the early days of the pandemic better?  The impact of Brexit on health and social care sector procurement and staff retention probably also bares an examination, whilst the inquiry probably should not look into whether Brexit was a good or bad idea (although I do have very strong thoughts on that too) but it could look at whether the government and the NHS had underestimated the negative impacts of Brexit and if lack of PPE and staff could have been compensated for more in the months before the pandemic arrived in the UK.  Slightly harder to quantify but how did a decade of underinvestment and preoccupation with “lean practices” in healthcare shape the possible response to the pandemic. Not even just the early response, health and social care is still dealing with the pandemic now, how might this current response be different without Brexit. 

Then examine the initial response.

  • The lack of PPE,
  • the setting up of procurement channels that apparently prioritised people with a direct contact to the cabinet or Tory donors, 
  • the way that inequalities and racism impacted not only infection, but death, allocation of PPE and the criminal enforcing of lockdown,
  • localised responses and the timing of the lockdown. Locking down the north west, West Yorkshire and the East Midlands the night before Eid felt harsh at the time but realising that the people ordering the lockdown were partying at the same time just looks like naked racism / islamaphobia,
  • the lack of support for self employed and the arts sector in general

Additionally, (far too big for a single bullet point) the dreadful messaging throughout. It felt like one week we were at level 3, the next week we at orange level. Messaging that was also hampered by the government’s inability to admit they made a mistake; the rules on masks were changed because Michael Gove forgot to wear a mask in Pret, rather than admit he got it wrong.  The choice to call public health measures “restrictions”, the choice to call the withdrawal of public health mandates as “Freedom day” when scientists were predicting that the pandemic wasn’t over.  And “Eat Out to Help Out”.  And the graphics that went with each new three word slogan. For a government that likes to splash the cash (how much did that briefing room cost again?), they really could have spent a bit more on a comms expert and a designer.

I’ll stop listing things the inquiry should address, not because I’ve run out of things but because this blog post is becoming ridiculously long! The government committed to a Covid inquiry in May 2021, due to start Spring 2022. Fair to say, that this inquiry needs to be independent and thorough. A rushed whitewashing of a job designed to minimise the harm to the government will only further traumatise a tired nation.