More information is slowly seeping out about how our government responded to the Covid pandemic. In summary, not very well.
It is always dubious to be wise after the event.
Moreover, Covid was an extremely rare and worrying event.
However, some of the government’s decisions were breathtakingly poor and have had serious consequences.
You might to be surprised to learn that the government was well-prepared for the pandemic. It had planned for it. It had published a plan to deal with it.
Take a look at UK Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy, published in 2011.
The government’s advisers said that an airborne virus pandemic was highly likely.
It recommended that government should not lock down in such a scenario, but should let the vast majority of the public carry on life as normal, whilst shielding the most vulnerable.
On the basis of two Italian hospitals being overwhelmed in the early stages of Covid, because they followed extremely foolish procedures, the UK and most of the Western world, panicked and locked down.
And the UK government sent Covid patients from the NHS into care homes. Into those care homes which should have been hermetically sealed off from society.
Will there ever be a true debate about this?
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