Court says UK’s nursing home COVID-19 policy was illegal

By JILL LAWLESS
Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — A British court has ruled that the Conservative government acted illegally when it discharged hospital patients into nursing homes without testing them for COVID-19 or isolating them. The policy led to thousands of deaths. Two High Court judges said Wednesday that the policy in March and April 2020 was unlawful because it failed to take into account the risk from non-symptomatic carriers of the virus. Around 20,000 people died with the virus in British nursing homes during the initial months of the country’s first outbreak. The ruling came in a lawsuit by two women whose fathers died in nursing homes. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said officials had to make difficult decisions when “we didn’t know very much about the disease.”