Welsh government slow to debate Covid threat, inquiry told

Threat not discussed until weeks after chief medical officer warned of ‘significant risk’ it would reach Wales

The Welsh government’s cabinet did not discuss the threat posed by Covid as the virus spread across the world until a month after its chief medical officer had warned there was a “significant risk” it would reach Wales, the inquiry into the pandemic has heard.

At the start of three weeks of hearings in Cardiff, the inquiry was told this was more than three weeks after the UK government’s cabinet debated Covid, with bereaved families describing this delay as a missed chance to “armour up for battle”.