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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Robert Booth Social affairs correspondent

‘What the hell went wrong?’: bereaved hope for answers as Covid inquiry begins

left to right: Jean Adamson, Aldrick Adamson, Dr Saleyha Ashan, Stuart Tuckwood and Ursula Derry and Martina Ferguson
Left to right: Jean Adamson, Aldrick Adamson, Dr Saleyha Ashan, Stuart Tuckwood, and Ursula Derry and Martina Ferguson. Composite: Graeme Robertson, Ali Smith, Martin Godwin

When the UK Covid-19 public inquiry begins in earnest on Tuesday, it will be three years and two months since Jean Adamson watched through a window as her father sang a hymn as he succumbed to the virus in his Essex care home. It was Easter Sunday 2020.

Locked out, supposedly to prevent infection, and blocked from holding Aldrick, a 93-year-old who had arrived in Britain from Barbados as part of the 1950s Windrush generation, Jean thought the song was him “wanting to say, I’m on my way”.

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