The virus spread ‘like wildfire’ among the elderly because of government failures, a public investigation has found

The UK government’s negligent approach towards care homes at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic led to high disease and death rates among the elderly, a public inquiry into the nation’s response to the disease outbreak has concluded.

More than 43,000 people died from Covid-19 in care homes throughout the UK from March 2020 to July 2022, with most of them registered during the first year of the pandemic, according to data presented in the inquiry report published on Tuesday. That amounts to just under 10% of the total care homes population from 2022 to 2023.

An earlier report published by the UK Parliament put the death toll from March 2020 to April 2021 at over 41,000, adding that it amounted to nearly a quarter of deaths from all causes among care home residents as well as more than a quarter of all Covid-19 deaths in England over that period.…