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The Home Affairs committee said a lack of border measures earlier in the pandemic was a "serious mistake". It added ministers had underestimated the threat of importing the virus from Europe as opposed to Asia.
In their report, the committee backed a decision not to close the UK's borders in the early stages of the crisis, given the "large number" of returning British nationals. But it added that a requirement for people arriving from certain countries to quarantine, introduced in early June, should have come in earlier.
They added that a later decision - on 13 March - to end self-isolation advice for international arrivals not displaying symptoms had been "inexplicable".
Citing evidence from scientific studies, the MPs said it was likely that thousands of infected people then arrived in the UK before full lockdown came in 10 days later.
"It is highly likely that this contributed to the rapid increase in the spread of the virus in mid-March and to the overall scale of the outbreak in the UK," they added. "The failure properly to consider the possibility of imposing stricter requirements on those arriving - such as mandatory self-isolation, increased screening, targeted testing or enforceable quarantine - was a serious error."
The government's response to the pandemic would be a "comedy of errors" if it hadn't turned into tragedy for the relatives of 66,000 "excess dead" .....