London: A public inquiry released Thursday slammed the former U.K. government's initial response to the coronavirus pandemic as "too little, too late," and said the failure to lockdown the country earlier "led to an unacceptable loss of life."

The inquiry, chaired by Heather Hallett, found that chaos at the heart of government and a failure to take COVID-19 seriously potentially cost 23,000 lives in the first wave of the pandemic.

Hallett's report on the government response to COVID-19 found that the prime minister at the time, Boris Johnson, presided over a "toxic" culture in Downing Street and regularly changed his mind, while cabinet members as well as key scientists all failed to act with the urgency needed to tackle the virus.

The actions of the government were "too little, too lat

See Full Page