A grieving son whose dad would have turned 95 today had he not died due to coronavirus said he desperately hopes lessons will be learned from the Covid inquiry.
Glyn Lewis, who is described by his son as being “tough as old boots”, died in October 2020 aged 93, about a week after he fell ill in his care home in Stratford-upon-Avon.
As the Covid inquiry opens, Peter Lewis, one of the millions of Brits who have lost someone to Covid, has said he wants to see lessons learned in the inquiry to avoid the mistakes that led to his father’s death from being made again.
On Tuesday the first preliminary hearing took place, after being delayed due to the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
Former High Court judge Baroness Heather Hallett, who is heading the probe, has said she would be conducting a thorough investigation into the government's decisions and the impact coronavirus has had across the UK.
The inquiry would cover pandemic preparedness, political decision-making and the health system, as well as vaccines, test and trace and health inequalities.
It comes as Britain has recorded almost 20 million COVID infections and more than 166,000 deaths - the seventh highest fatality total globally.
Earlier this month the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK group said it hoped the inquiry would give "closure" and gave a damning indictment on Boris Johnson's leadership.
Speaking to the Mirror on Tuesday, his late dad’s birthday, 54-year-old Londoner Peter said circumstances around his dad’s death were “emotionally very, very difficult”.
Glyn, a retired French teacher, moved from St Albans into the care home following the death of his wife Jean, about 12 years before his own. Her death left Glyn “very sad”, Peter said, but he battled on, joining his new local methodist church and continuing to keep active.
“He was 93 when he died but was still very keen to walk everyday,” Peter said. “He was tough as old boots as he’d grown up with a single parent in Croydon and throughout his life had walked and cycled.”
“We shared a passion for sport and for France and for cycling and walking. I still cycle and walk everywhere and that’s something that he had done in his lifetime, he was still cycling when he was into his 90s, cycling to church.
“He passed on lots of important things to me,” Peter added.
In the months leading up to October of 2020, the UK had enjoyed an easing of restrictions before late Prime Minister Boris Johnson once again began to implement new measures in September.
Peter was not able to visit his father due to restrictions preventing him from travelling out London, while his sister, who lived closer to the home, was not able to visit him as regularly as she normally would.
Peter said the care home’s restrictions on residents leaving the buildings drove his dad “absolutely mad”.
“He grew up in London during the Blitz and he said to me that it was better during the Blitz because ‘at least we could go out then and we could dive for cover if we heard the bombs coming’.
“Whereas at the time he was basically locked into the home. He found that very, very difficult not being able to get out.”
Initially, the care home staff facilitated a small space outdoors where residents could walk in isolation but Peter said the situation worsened when “through nobody’s fault”, Covid got into the home.
“Obviously there were lots of vulnerable, older people there,” he said. “And when they got Covid into the home, they didn’t allow residents to leave their rooms, which obviously increased their sense of isolation.
“We knew he had been isolated to his room and then we were told he was unwell before it was confirmed that it was Covid.”
“It was just emotionally very, very difficult,” Peter said. “Because obviously I’d want to see him.”
Peter’s hopes from the inquiry were that those affected would have the opportunity to share their experiences and help shape how things would be improved if the situation were to arise again.
“That’s the key thing for me - if my dad died of Covid then the key thing is to make sure that the lessons are learned so that if it happens again then it’s dealt with more humanely,” he said.
Peter also hoped the inquiry would help those involved to learn about the importance of enabling people at his father’s age to see the people they cared about - with the right protections.
“My recollection is that testing should have been much quicker, much more systematic and much more targeted where there were clearly vulnerable people, such as care homes,” he said.
“It is a tricky balance between the needs of the care home to protect everyone that is in the care home, and individual people and their families being able to see each other. Hopefully this inquiry can have a think about how that balance is made.
“Like everything in life, you do something and you make mistakes, but you have to make sure that you do the learning.”