Séamus Ahearne: THE COVID INQUIRY REPORT UK (Chaired by Baroness Hallett)
The Report has been published. It is some 800 pages long. It covers England and the devolved Nations – Scotland, Wales and N Ireland. It cost circa £100 million.
I have only seen the highlights and listened to some commentary. I am concerned. Clearly it is essential that people learn from the experience of the Covid years. Every aspect needed examination. A Country has to learn, how better to go forward, as everyone prepares, for what might be the next epidemic.
However, I am startled with some of the notorious points made.
- Too Little. Too Late.
- 23,000 might not have died if the ‘shut down’ had happened a week earlier. ( I think this is an atrocious comment. The political, scientific and medical leaders were trying to do what seemed best and wrong.)
- Number 10 had a ‘chaotic and indecisive culture.’ Dominic Cummins poisoned the atmosphere. Boris – may not have been able to grasp how to move forward. But surely we have to say – he did what he could with the information given him.
- Politicians didn’t understand the science. The ‘experts’ were overworked.
- The children’s education was stunted by closing down the schools. (How does this stand up with the idea that if the country was closed down a week earlier, etc. so many would have been saved?)
It was of course very wrong that Boris Johnson’s coterie in Number 10 should be able to Party, when the rest of the UK were seriously shut down.
My thoughts are:
Yes. Examine what happened and what went wrong. Learn from it. But the blame culture is totally unacceptable. We are always screaming for a scapegoat. People didn’t know how to deal with something completely new. Why are we so quick to hurl blame and name people? Some very serious and important people have been named. For what purpose? To give us a ‘satisfactory’ answer?
There is an assumption that everything in life is fixable. It isn’t. It can’t be. It is time we accepted that. The same happens here in this country where Inquires or Tribunals are set up. For what? Why can’t we accept that things go wrong and humans make mistakes? Why do we want such clarity as if humans are machines? And clarity of understanding is obvious. We hear regularly – of how crippled the Health Service is with litigation. Why can’t we accept that every sickness is not ready for healing? That people die. That our bodies give in. Not everyone can be saved. Can’t we give at least the benefit of the doubt to our practitioners? Blame. Blame is not the answer. We can try to understand and learn always. Where there is serious fault and human error; we need to tidy up. But blame is very unacceptable.
I think that there is a fundamental fault in our outlook; attitudes and possibly our system. There is a lack of humility. There is such a horrible delight in finding answers and especially in blaming people. We do need to focus much more in every part of life, on the values we have received from Christ.
Shalom
Seamus Ahearne osa 21st November 2025.