Fears Britain repeating virus bungle
As second wave breaks, scientists say the UK hasn’t learned from its mistakes
Britain bungled its response to the coronavirus the first time. Now many scientists fear it’s about to do it again.
The virus is on the rise once more in the UK, which has recorded almost 42,000 Covid-19 deaths, with confirmed daily infections hitting a record-high 6634 yesterday, though deaths remain far below their April peak.
The surge has brought new restrictions on daily life, the prospect of a grim winter of mounting deaths — and a feeling of deja vu.
“We didn’t react quick enough in March,” epidemiologist John Edmunds, a member of the government’s scientific advisory committee, told the BBC. “I think we haven’t learned from our mistake back then and we’re, unfortunately, about to repeat it.”
The UK is not alone in seeing a second wave of Covid-19. European countries including France, Spain and the Netherlands are struggling to suppress rising outbreaks while limiting the economic damage.
But Britain’s pandemic response has revealed a roster of weaknesses, including unwieldy government structures, a fraying public health system, poor communication by Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government and a reluctance to learn from other countries.
“We have to ask why a country with such reputed health and intelligence institutions has been so incapable of combating the Covid pandemic,” Gus O’Donnell, the former head of Britain’s civil service, said.
Like many other countries, apart from Asian nations hit by past outbreaks of the Sars and Mers coronavirus illnesses, Britain was unprepared for the pandemic.
Britain quickly approved a test for Covid-19, but lacked the lab capacity to process those tests. That meant attempts to locate, test and isolate the contacts of every infected person soon foundered.
By the time the Government ordered a nationwide lockdown on March 23, the virus was out of control. Supplies of protective equipment to hospitals and nursing homes soon ran dangerously short.
Luca Richeldi, an adviser to the Italian government on Covid-19, told a committee of British lawmakers this week that he was “shocked” at the slow UK response while Italy was “living a collective tragedy”.
“I had the impression that in general what was happening in Italy was not really perceived as something that could happen in the UK,” he said.
Critics say the government’s insistence on going its own way — epitomised and exacerbated by the UK’s departure from the European Union in January — has hobbled its response.
The UK spent months trying to develop a contact-tracing smartphone app from scratch before abandoning it and adopting an Apple- and Google-developed system already used in many other
countries. The app was launched in England yesterday — four months late.
Like some other countries, the UK released elderly patients from hospitals back to nursing homes without testing them for the virus. Thousands died as a result. Summer brought a respite as cases receded. It also brought a push to revive the economy. The Government urged workers to return to offices to prevent city centres becoming ghost towns and tempted people back to restaurants with discounts. It worked economically, but it may have helped the virus return.
Given Johnson’s back-to-normal boosterism, there was inevitable confusion when he reversed course this week and announced that people should continue to work from home after all. That came alongside new restrictions including a 10pm curfew in bars and restaurants and expanded face-mask requirements.
But the key failing, many believe, is in the coronavirus testing system.
Britain has rapidly expanded testing capacity to 250,000 a day, and set up a test-and-trace system with thousands of staff.
But when millions of UK children went back to school this month — and
some came home with coughs and fevers — demand for tests surged to around 1 million a day. Many people found they could not book a test, or were sent hundreds of miles away.
“I don’t think anybody was expecting to see the real sizeable increase in demand that we’ve seen over the last few weeks,” Dido Harding, who heads the programme, told lawmakers this week — although many scientists and officials had predicted exactly that.
Headed by Harding, a former telecoms executive married to a Conservative lawmaker, the test-andtrace programme is largely run by private companies using a call-centre model to reach contacts and tell them to self-isolate. The system is only reaching 60 per cent of infected people’s contacts, and research suggests many people who are asked to self-isolate don’t comply. “The whole thing is hopelessly inefficient,” said Martin McKee, professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Criticism of Johnson’s leadership is growing. Johnson is all too aware of the danger of the coronavirus — it put him in intensive care in April. But he is an instinctively laissez-faire politician who likes broad brushstrokes, simple slogans and optimistic messages.
In March, Johnson said Britain could “send the virus packing” in 12 weeks. This month, he said he hoped things would be back to normal by Christmas. This week he acknowledged that new restrictions will be in place for six months.
He said he was “deeply, spiritually reluctant to make any of these impositions” — but many scientists believe stronger measures will inevitably be needed, especially if the testand-trace system doesn’t improve.
Meanwhile, polls suggest support for the government’s handling of the crisis is falling, and authorities worry compliance is fraying.
Unease is growing among formerly loyal allies of the prime minister.
The Spectator, a conservative news magazine that Johnson used to edit, summarised the past six months as “disorder, debacle, rebellion, U-turn and confusion”.
“Where’s Boris?” the magazine asked on its cover.