Covid Inquiry: Professor Sir Chris Whitty says UK responded "too late" to Covid-19

The UK government "went too late" into lockdown measures when Covid-19 struck, the chief medical officer has said.

Giving evidence to the Covid-19 Inquiry today (21 November) Professor Sir Chris Whitty said he had more concerns over social isolation and loneliness caused by the pandemic than other health bosses, leading him to err more on the side of caution in the build-up to Covid-19 arriving on UK shores. He admitted that in hindsight, the country reacted "too late" to the first wave of coronavirus - but insisted that pulling the trigger too early would have caused "unneeded" isolation and shielding.

The inquiry panel is investigating any failings in the government's response to the pandemic, and what lessons can be learned from Covid for the future.

Professor Sir Chris Whitty said: "I had a stronger concern than some that the biggest impacts of everything we did would be on areas of deprivation, and for those living alone. We essentially had two things to balance - the risk of going too early, which creates all the public health damage with minimal impact on the virus - or going too late, which comes with all the problems of the pandemic running away.

"With the benefit of hindsight we went a bit too late with the first wave.

"I weighed it up from a public health point of view - it was not part of my job to say what the wider economic and social questions were. The question of someone going into shielding before needing to and issues of loneliness, depression and so on is a clinical and public health problem. I don't think any public health expert would disagree; they might disagree with the exact approach I or others took."

Lead counsel to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry Hugo Keith KC asked Professor Sir Chris Whitty was “singing from the same hymn sheet” as then-chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance when giving advice to the government during the pandemic. It comes after questions of disagreements between the two were raised while Sir Patrick was giving evidence yesterday (21 November).

Sir Chris responded that the differences in their opinion were "extremely small" and dismissed these concerns. However, he added that some people involved in the Covid-19 response did not have the long-term vision that he had.

"Some people were thinking this was just a matter of getting through a few weeks, then we're out and it's all fine," he said.

"You had to think about the course of the pandemic as a whole, and that was clearly going to be a lot longer. Countermeasures like vaccines were going to take some time, so you had to to whatever you were doing until the cavalry came over the hill."