Inadequate planning left Britain unprepared, forcing a costly scramble for vital medical supplies, a report has found.
The UK wasted billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money during the Covid-19 pandemic, a damning report from the official public inquiry has concluded. Years of inadequate planning and systemic failures left Britain unprepared for the global race to secure vital medical supplies, the investigation found.
Published on Tuesday, the fifth report by the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, chaired by former judge Baroness Heather Hallett, found that nearly £10 billion ($13.4 billion) of the approximately £14.9 billion spent on personal protective equipment (PPE) was wasted. Combined spending by the UK and the devolved administrations on PPE, ventilators, and testing equipment topped £42 billion between January 2020 and June 2022.
Britain was “simply not ready to compete” in the global race for vital medical supplies because those responsible were “caught off-guard, with inadequate and untested plans” for emergency procurement and distribution, Hallett said, adding that “the waste of taxpayers’ money was vast.”
The country entered the pandemic with its PPE stockpile “in a perilous state,” including large quantities of expired equipment, while emergency procurement and distribution plans had never been properly tested, according to the report. It also found that the country was too reliant on China for key medical supplies, leaving it vulnerable when governments around the world began competing for limited stocks.
Doctors, nurses, and care workers were left without adequate protective equipment, with some forced to use makeshift gear such as bin bags, shower caps, and supplies bought online, according to evidence cited by the inquiry.
One Department of International Trade official described the search for ventilators as a “Wild West,” with speculators and intermediaries driving up prices as governments competed for scarce supplies, according to evidence heard by the inquiry.
The report also criticized the High Priority, or “VIP” lane, which fast-tracked offers from suppliers referred by ministers, MPs, peers and senior officials. Hallett called it a “misguided attempt at prioritization” that embedded unfairness and undermined public trust.
Earlier reports by the inquiry found that the authorities across the UK acted “too little, too late” during the pandemic and that delays in introducing restrictions contributed to thousands of additional deaths. They also described the cabinet of then Prime Minister Boris Johnson as having a “toxic and chaotic culture,” saying key decisions were often dominated or derailed by his inner circle.
Image credit: Heather Mount
Thats what they want bankrupt the system make taxes/rates/water/power lower productivity with health&saftey regulation/licensing break capitalism so people will want to accept the living wage and will willingly let the Govt control all aspects of their life.
People are naturally lazy if there is a free lunch going majority will jump at it.
Plain and simple: grifters and corruption.
COn-of-the-century-VID was the scam of the century, and the crime of the century. How many more billions were wasted on injections that did not work and test kits which proved nothing – not to mention the billions lost through lock-downs, lost production and business that never re-opened?
And all brought to you by fake democracy uni-party politicians who were in up to their necks on the biggest criminal scam in history.
The UK at the time was under a Conservative government therefore was not privy to all the ‘info’ the rest of the Western world had as they were all under Left wing party rule.. Democrats, Labour (NZ), Labor (Oz) Macron, Germany, Europe etc further confirming my ‘theory’ the Left had something to do with Cvd and the jab – which was their chance to bring in mandates, surveillance, digital ID, immigrant invasion, over zealous policing, lies on top of lies… Jacinda, Justin, Albo, Biden, Macron etc knew all about Cvd and how they could rule the proles using a ‘virus’ as ammunition.
It was all a “lefty” conspiracy…
… why in nz did National and ACT trot along in unison then, with Seymour participating in the propaganda videos?
The idiocy wasnt politically tribal, it was almost universal
The “Left” vs “Right” paradigm is for the little people. The fake democracy uni-parties put on a circus to keep the masses distracted and occupied while they are busy constructing a totalitarian panopticon to control your life down to molecular granularity. In the totalitarian dystopia which is engulfing the “developed” world (and by osmosis controlling the rest of the world which is outside of it’s core target area) is singular and centralised – neither left nor right, just totalitarian.
Not enough planning went into the plandemic? Righto.
A wonderfully profitable few years for the slave-muzzle/face-diaper manufacturers and also the makers of the lovely green/blue-hued dye used to tint the said slave-muzzle/face-diapers. Also the optometrists cashed in too coz the bleating slave-muzzle/face-diaper wearers got eye-issues from constantly darting their eyeballs back and forth in nicely-timed unison with the billowing of their slave-muzzles/face-diapers when prodding their QR-codes whilst talking and snitching on those who weren’t obeying their officially mandated nazi rules….
The money wasn’t wasted. It was siphoned off, directed into bank accounts, laundered, or just plain stolen. The robbers are still in the same positions they were in before the con, just a lot wealthier.
Articles like this are simply a whitewash.
Notice the framing of legitimacy. Its not anyone owning up to the whole thing being an epic rort, oh no no. We just went about the scandalous waste and tyranny the wrong way. Well be better oppressors and human rights abusers, next time.