The UK government’s delay in introducing Covid interventions and a lack of an effective contact tracing programme led to more severe restrictions than in other countries, the UK’s Covid inquiry has heard.
Countries such as Japan, South Korea and Vietnam were able to use testing and tracing measures to maintain low levels of spread and outbreak of Covid-19, said Thomas Hale, leader of the Oxford Covid-19 government response tracker, which monitored how 185 countries responded to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Keeping the virus at a lower level also meant these countries were able to avoid the more stringent measures required to deal with a more widespread infection, the professor added.
