UK’s pandemic response ‘too slow’, cost taxpayers billions

Bloomberg

The UK lost a “crucial month” in its fight against coronavirus because it was too slow to respond to a shortage of ventilators, while the delay in sourcing protective equipment came at a cost of 10 billion pounds ($13.3 billion) to the taxpayer, according to two spending reports.
Ministers only started efforts to buy more ventilators on March 3, just over a month after the World Health Organization declared the pandemic a public health emergency, the House of Commons spending watchdog said on Wednesday. The National Audit Office (NAO), which scrutinises public spending, said the UK’s tardiness in sourcing PPE forced ministers to pay “very high prices” for new kit — much of which came too late for the first wave of infections.
The two reports are likely to pile more pressure on Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government over its handling of the pandemic.
The UK’s death toll of more than 55,000 is among the highest in the world, while the economic damage is also severe.
Government stockpiles of PPE were intended for an influenza pandemic and weren’t adequate for the Covid-19 outbreak, the NAO said in its report. Between February and July, the government spent
12.5 billion pounds on 32 billion items of PPE, of which only 2.6 billion were delivered to frontline organisations, according to the NAO.