A landmark report has been released assessing the UK Government’s response to the Coronavirus pandemic.
The report concluded the immediate response was a disaster. Examples include 1) accepting herd immunity as inevitable without firm prospect of a vaccine, and 2) deciding to stop community testing in March 2020; which left the UK with little data to analyse the speed of the spread of the virus.
Despite these errors, the UK’s vaccine rollout was a success. In particular, it highlights a decision to fund vaccine research back in 2016—and continued support from successive governments—that led to the speedy development of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.
Without understanding the what, how, and why of past decisions, it’s impossible to respond to similar events in the future. So I love living in a country promotes and supports rigorous post-mortems on government action.