A man reads the hearts on the Covid Memorial Wall in London, as the BMA, TUC and Covid-19 Families for Justice, respond to the publication of the first report from the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, Thursday July 18, 2024. The U.K. government was ill-prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic and serious errors in planning failed its citizens, an inquiry found Thursday. Retired judge Heather Hallett, who is leading the ongoing inquiry, said the government wrongly believed in 2019 that it was one of the best-prepared countries in the world for an outbreak and it anticipated the wrong pandemic — influenza. (Jonathan Brady/PA via AP)
Dr Salayha Ahsan, who lost her father during the Covid -19 pandemic, speaks to the media as the BMA join the TUC and Covid-19 Families for Justice at the Covid Memorial Wall in London to respond to the publication of the first report from the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, Thursday July 18, 2024. (Jonathan Brady/PA via AP)
FILE - Protesters show pictures of COVID victims and placards outside Dorland House as Britain's former Prime Minister Boris Johnson testifies at Britain's COVID-19 public inquiry in London, on Dec. 7, 2023. The U.K. government was ill-prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic and serious errors in planning failed its citizens, an inquiry found Thursday, July 18, 2024. Retired judge Heather Hallett, who is leading the ongoing inquiry, said the government wrongly believed in 2019 that it was one of the best-prepared countries in the world for an outbreak and it anticipated the wrong pandemic — influenza. “This belief was dangerously mistaken," Hallett said in releasing her first report. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)