Lobby Akkinola has experienced a range of emotions since his father Femi’s demise in April 2020 as a result of Covid-19. The 60-year-old key worker’s passing left Lobby searching for answers and questioning why his father was left susceptible to the virus. This led him to join hundreds of other bereaved families in demanding a public inquiry into the handling of the pandemic.
“We fought to get the government to set up the Covid inquiry and we did so as a result of we know that to avoid wasting lives sooner or later we have to study lessons from errors in the dealing with of the pandemic,” Lobby stated. He hopes the inquiry will hold the federal government accountable and supply recommendations to vary how public health crises are managed in the future.
The COVID inquiry, chaired by retired choose Lady Heather Hallett, shall be one of the necessary public inquiries in history, with over 226,000 people having died from the virus in the UK alone. The inquiry will examine a broad range of matters, from health and social care to lockdowns, testing, and vaccine distribution.
Although the inquiry will feature testimonies from bereaved families, the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group, representing around 6,000 relatives, was disenchanted when their request for in-person testimonies was denied because of logistical reasons. Instead, members of the family shall be included through a web-based portal known as Every Story Matters. Lobby hopes this decision might be reconsidered.
The inquiry is set to run until summer season 2026 and might be divided into separate modules, every masking a selected space. Incredibly will concentrate on the country’s “resilience and preparedness,” while the second module, “core UK decision-making and political governance,” will study selections made by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s authorities.
Lady Hallett and her staff of attorneys, led by Hugo Keith KC, could have the advantage of examining contemporaneous proof and material introduced to the inquiry. However, the inquiry’s early days have been overshadowed by the government’s attempt to dam Lady Hallett from accessing WhatsApp messages and notes shared on Google Spaces by Boris Johnson and his decision-makers. The authorities is looking for a judicial evaluation, arguing that not all the information is Covid-related..