he debate over holding a public inquiry into the British government’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis resembles the way we talked about the virus when it remained confined to Wuhan: most people agree that it is coming; few are willing to discuss what it will look like. This may, in part, be due to an understandable reluctance to point fingers or apportion blame before the storm has passed, while hundreds of people are still dying every day from the virus. But it is far from being an unseemly subject that it is too early to discuss: public confidence will be enhanced by an open discussion about the scope of an inquiry. The results of any such inquiry cannot come too soon, not just to answer the urgent questions of bereaved families across the country, but also to help head off the worst impacts of future pandemics – possibly even a second or third wave of the current virus. Unless a statutory inquiry is established now (perhaps along the lines of the ongoing inquiry into the fire at Grenfell Tower), there is a risk some evidence will not be preserved, and those with facts to hide will have the opportunity to lead us away from a judge-led inquiry towards something far less independent and rigorous, or to hive off certain areas frompublic scrutiny. There are many forms of fact finding, with inquests being the obvious forum for determining the facts of deaths, especially unnatural deaths and those in state custody. But the Coronavirus Act 2020 amendments to coronial law and recent chief coroner guidance, some of it highly controversial, aim to severely reduce the use of inquest juries and the scope of inquests, where they are held at all. In any event, it is unrealistic to ask under-resourced coroners up and down the country to unpick the potentially complex web of systemic contributory factors that led to each individual Covid-19 death and ensure consistent, fast learning. This is exacerbated by the sheer scale of these simultaneous deaths around the country. Central government has numerous alternative fact-finding methods. It could establish one or more royal commissions, civil service reviews or parliamentary select committee investigations. Any one of these alone or in combination would result in some scrutiny of the facts and how the crisis has been handled, but none has anything close to the political independence of an inquiry held under the Inquiries Act 2005. Nor do they possess the same powers of compulsion relating to key documents and witnesses. It is noticeable that Dominic Raab, when standing in for Boris Johnson at prime minister’s questions on 22 April, explicitly declined Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey’s offer to commit to a public inquiry. This might indicate that Johnson’s government would look to establish smaller investigations into discrete aspects of the Covid-19 crisis and then use this to argue that a fullblown public inquiry was either no longer necessary, or should not stray into the areas already covered by these less robust forms of investigation. Covid-19 is having a devastating effect on many different areas of our lives. The loss of life has been so extensive, and the social and economic damage so widespread, that one of the primary challenges for any inquiry would be to determine which of the numerous issues to examine. The Grenfell Tower and child abuse inquiries provide valuable lessons in managing just such wide-ranging fact-finding exercises, though the Covid-19 inquiry would have to find its own solutions to what would be an unprecedented task. For example, phase one of the Grenfell inquiry focused on the night of the fire. One can imagine something similar for Covid-19, in which the scientific advice given to government and the decisions made by it are tracked, hour-by-hour. This initial phase could also include other basic fact-finding, such as the number of deaths actually caused by, or directly related to, the virus. Phase two of the Grenfell inquiry is split into eight “modules”, each of which covers a different aspect of the disaster, such as the tower’s refurbishment, the cladding, firefighting and response by government and other public bodies to previous incidents. Again, one can imagine similar for Covid-19, with each module tackling a different problem or priority area, such as the provision of PPE and the rollout of test and trace. Urgent recommendations could be issued as soon as some areas were addressed, and reforms implemented without delay. A common criticism of public inquiries is that they are expensive, and the recommendations they make are often ignored. In this case, a properly managed inquiry could actually save public money, because – as with Grenfell – it could replace the need for thousands of individual coronial inquests. Meanwhile, what are the costs of failing to learn the full lessons of this pandemic? Politicians are free to ignore recommendations, but they are much less likely to if the body making them has widespread public support, and is seen to be acting independently in society’s best interests. The Covid-19 crisis poses powerful challenges to almost every aspect of our society. It forms precisely the kind of overarching threat that necessitates clear-eyed analysis in order to prevent the same happening again. A public inquiry is by far the best way to achieve this. The announcement of the inquiry is already overdue: what is also now needed is an urgent discussion with key interest groups on how it will work. The scope of the inquiry must be finalised in a way that will command public confidence and ensure all relevant facts are brought to light, identifying those responsible for any failings. Most importantly, a public inquiry must enable fast learning, aimed at preventing further loss of life, misery and economic catastrophe.