Families who lost loved ones during the Covid pandemic have appealed to Andy Burnham to deliver justice for the tens of thousands of victims who died unnecessarily.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, they highlighted his key role in securing justice for the Hillsborough families, his pledge to do so for the victims of the June 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in west London, and urged him to address what they see as the biggest injustice in British history.
Letter highlights Burnham's record
“Thank you for standing with the Hillsborough families and for your call for a Grenfell Law,” wrote Matt Fowler, chair of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, which has 1,484 members in London and more than 7,000 across the UK.
“I am asking you to make the same public commitment to Covid bereaved families to ensure the lessons of the pandemic are learnt and acted on, so nobody else has to endure what we went through.”
Mr Fowler added: “Covid-19 has killed more than 230,000 people across the UK. Our bereaved community is by far the largest of these groups seeking justice after failures by the state. We need your support.”
Death toll and lockdown delay
Nearly 6,000 Londoners died due to Covid within weeks of a “deadly delay” in ordering the first lockdown, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. They show how the virus swept through the capital in April 2020, with 5,967 deaths attributed to coronavirus.
As the pandemic struck, London was initially hardest hit, with 642 Covid deaths in the capital in March, out of 1,568 across the whole of England, or 41% of the total.
The then Prime Minister Boris Johnson was being urged as early as March 14 to lockdown the capital, according to the report by the Covid Inquiry which slammed the “chaos” in Government. The report concluded that a delay in ordering the first lockdown, on March 23, cost 23,000 lives. It also criticised the “toxic” culture in No10.
Johnson dismisses findings
Mr Johnson dismissed the findings of the inquiry, chaired by Baroness Heather Hallett, as “totally muddled”. “She seems to have laid into the previous Tory government for not locking down hard enough or fast enough - just when the rest of the world has been thinking that lockdowns were probably wildly overdone,” he added.
However, Mr Fowler, whose father died at the age of 56 in 2020, believes there were many more needless deaths as the pandemic continued. He stressed in his letter: “We now know that tens of thousands of people died who could have been saved. They were failed by a state weakened by years of austerity and decades of underinvestment. Government incompetence and misconduct cost lives.”
The group asked for a meeting with Mr Burnham to discuss justice for Covid victims.
In response, Health Secretary Yvette Cooper said: "Our thoughts remain with all those affected by the pandemic. We recognise the impact that these experiences have had on individuals and families, and the importance of ensuring that their experiences are heard and reflected in the lessons we learn from the Inquiry."
She stressed that the Government’s recently published Pandemic Preparedness Strategy aimed to improve its approach to future health emergencies and develop the underlying capabilities needed to respond rapidly.
