London: According to testimony given on Tuesday at an inquiry looking into how the country handled the Covid-19 health emergency, the UK government's preoccupation with Brexit seriously hindered pandemic planning.

Hugo Keith, the Covid-19 inquiry's lead attorney, stated that the nation's exit from the European Union "required an enormous amount of planning and preparation." Covid-19 is currently holding its first public session.

"It is evident that such planning, starting in 2018, crowded out and prevented some, if not the majority, of the improvements to resilience planning and preparedness that central government itself understood were necessary to be made."

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With more than 128,500 fatalities reported by mid-July 2021, the UK experienced one of the highest Covid-19 death tolls in Europe.

The most recent government statistics put the total number of deaths with Covid-19 on the death certificate at just over 227,000.

The inquiry's first phase, which is being presided over by retired senior judge Heather Hallett, is concentrating on the preparedness and resilience of the UK.

However, relatives of those who passed away have already criticised the investigation for failing to include them and claim it will be a "farce" if they are unable to testify.
Outside the inquiry in central London, members of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice campaign stood in a queue while holding photos of their loved ones.

Barbara Herbert, a group participant who lost her husband Paul to Covid, asked earlier this week, "How can the inquiry properly evaluate the decisions made by those in charge without learning from the experiences of our members?

Saleyha Ahsan, a doctor whose father Ahsan-ul-Haq Chaudry also passed away, continued, "We are people that will be able to put reality to the theory that Hallett is testing, that has to happen, otherwise it's just a farce."

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Hallett promised at the beginning of the investigation that those who had been harmed by the pandemic would "always be at the heart of the inquiry."

She commended the family members for keeping a "dignified vigil," and expressed the hope that they would "understand when they see the results of the work we are doing that I am listening to them."

"Their loss will be recognised," continued Hallett, who had previously presided over the coroner's inquests into the 52 victims of the July 7, 2005, London bombings.

The investigation is also the subject of debate over its demand for the prime minister of the pandemic era, Boris Johnson, who launched the investigation in 2021, to turn over his unredacted WhatsApp messages and notebooks.

The government of his successor Rishi Sunak has filed a legal challenge in response to the request for the material.

While Johnson is rumoured to be in favour of the material being shared, Sunak, who served as finance minister during the pandemic, has denied attempting to obstruct its release.

Hallett, however, has not given up on her demand for the unredacted communications, which are most likely to contain exchanges pertaining to the ordering of lockdowns in 2020, when Sunak was in charge of the nation's finances.

The request will be decided by a High Court judge at the end of June, and the information is anticipated to be crucial to the investigation's second phase, which will focus on government decision-making later in 2023.

Leading epidemiologists Jimmy Whitworth and Charlotte Hammer will be the first witnesses to testify before the investigation in person on Wednesday.

In the UK, public inquiries are government-funded but have an impartial chair. They look into issues of public interest, obtaining information about what occurred, why, and any lessons that can be drawn.

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They do not make decisions regarding civil or criminal liability, and any advice they give is not legally enforceable.

Later stages of the investigation will concentrate on the impact on the care sector, vaccines and therapeutics, government procurement, and how the UK health system handled the pandemic.

By mid-2026, interim reports will be released in advance of the hearings' scheduled conclusion.