A man who lost his grandmother to Covid-19 criticised the axing of free testing and other measures as he called the terrible milestone of 200,000 deaths in the UK 'absolutely heart-rending and tragic'.
Barrister Amos Waldman, 42, said he feels grief, upset and anger at the death toll, and said a public inquiry into the pandemic must start 'as soon as possible'. Mr Waldman said it was 'just absolutely shocking to see that the same mistakes really have been repeated throughout'.
"So far the Government is completely unable to learn any lessons," he added.
A total of 200,247 people in the UK have had Covid-19 recorded on their death certificate since the pandemic began, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Mr Waldman's grandmother, Sheila Lamb, 94, who moved into a care home in March 2020, died with the virus just weeks later on April 2.
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Mr Waldman, from Stockport, a member of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group, said it was 'difficult to put into words how traumatic it was', and said the current high prevalence of cases was causing bereaved families like his to 'relive some of that trauma'.
He told the PA news agency: "It’s absolutely heart-rending and tragic that we’re in this position. Initially, Patrick Vallance described in a select committee what a good result would be – 20,000 deaths. So, it's just mind-blowing that we've exceeded that so much. And it is possible with relatively simple measures to keep transmission low."
Mr Waldman, who has an immune condition, described removing masks in hospitals as 'appalling' and criticised the decision to end free testing. He said: "That should never have stopped for people. It's just wholly wrong for marginalized people who don’t have the means to pay – especially at the moment with a cost-of-living crisis – to pay large amounts for tests.
"It's just not encouraging people to test, and people aren't isolating, there’s pressure from employers to go into work (when Covid positive), which just shouldn’t be happening, and returning far too early. It's horrendous, at the moment."
He said the Government should be producing messaging on mask-wearing in busy, enclosed spaces and meeting up outdoors. It was 'disheartening', he added, that the Conservative leadership candidates do not appear to be prioritising coronavirus in their bids for power.
"But I'm hoping that something is done, because this isn't sustainable to do what we're doing at the moment," he said. "This isn’t living with Covid, it's just ignoring it and getting more and more mortality and morbidity."
The grim milestone comes as infections and hospital admissions are once again on the rise, driven by the coronavirus subvariant Omicron BA.2 – though the number of deaths remains well below levels reached in previous waves. The death toll includes all instances where Covid-19 has been mentioned on someone’s death certificate, either as a main cause of death or a contributory factor.
Campaigners from the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice called the figures “a tragedy” and “damning” evidence of the Government’s handling of the virus while charities urged more funding was needed for bereavement services. The 200,000 mark was reached on June 25, but has only now been confirmed due to the time it takes for deaths to be registered.
Analysis by the PA news agency of ONS data shows that the number of deaths involving coronavirus occurring in the UK each week has remained mostly below 1,000 since early last year, peaking between 1,000 and 2,000 whenever infections have jumped.
By contrast, during the wave caused by the Alpha variant in January 2021, the weekly figure peaked at nearly 10,000.
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