Thread by @GoodLawProject

The first major inquiry into how Government handled the Covid crisis has been published today. The findings are damning, revealing a catalogue of failures which led to thousands of needless deaths. THREAD⬇️
committees.parliament.uk/work/657/coron…

The report reflects much of what we’ve been saying for months. From flawed Test and Trace, to poor protection in elderly care homes, much more could have been done. It’s heartbreaking reading.

It calls Test and Trace “slow, uncertain, and often chaotic”, saying it “ultimately failed in its stated objective to prevent future lockdowns despite vast quantities of taxpayers’ money being directed to it”.

This revelation makes our own findings even more troubling: that there was a VIP fast track lane to award testing contracts to firms favoured by ministers 😡 goodlawproject.org/update/breakin…

The Committee said there were “unacceptably high death rates” in Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities, and housing and working conditions contributed to this. Shockingly, NHS staff from these communities “faced greater difficulty” accessing “appropriate and usable” PPE.

We uncovered evidence that revealed civil servants found themselves “drowning” in bids for Covid contracts that failed to meet due diligence standards after the government created a “VIP lane” for politically connected suppliers’ theguardian.com/politics/2021/…

The Committee also concluded that people with learning disabilities or autism had “disproportionately high mortality rates”. Horrifyingly, “Do not attempt CPR” notices were issued inappropriately for some people with learning disabilities. theguardian.com/world/2021/feb…

And the decision to send elderly people from NHS hospitals into care homes without testing at the start of the pandemic “contribut[ed] to the spread of infection in care homes”. Many thousands of vulnerable care home residents died needlessly.

Covid has not gone away and the Government has much to answer for. We will continue to hold them to account. To be in the know first, sign up to our mailing list 👇glplive.org/covidr-ml-tw-1…