A DAMNING Commons report on the government’s Covid-19 strategy has branded it the “worst public health failure ever,” with serious errors and delays costing lives.

The joint study by the cross-party science and technology committee and the health and social care committee said that Britain’s preparation for a pandemic was far too focused on flu and that ministers waited too long to impose a lockdown in early 2020.

Former chief medical officer Professor Dame Sally Davies told MPs that there was “groupthink,” with experts not believing that “Sars, or another Sars, would get from Asia to us.”