I feel like some of these is glossing over some really serious errors that the government made, which resulted in people dying.
We undoubtedly have made errors. But I certainly don't think we are alone in this. And I don't think the jury is still out in terms of what might yet unfold.
I think we don't pay enough attention to our level of preparedness and general underlying health as a nation in this context either.
We were always a lot more vulnerable because of economic inequality which doesn't exist elsewhere in Europe. That means we were always going to have more problems because of how we are set up as a nation. No matter what policy we pursued we were always going to be in trouble - certainly I think problems with care house in particular were down to low paid, over stretched and under valued staff which were compounded by low hospital bed capacity and low pre pandemic supplies from poor disaster planning. Something that crisis management after the fact, couldn't really mitigate easily.
We were already fucked by Nov 2019 and covid was discovered.
We ended up with more crisis early on, which then spiralled because of those factors.
I definitely think we've had massive communication problems and issues throughout. Even now we've got one regarding boosters. The message hasn't got through about the degree to which they make a difference and we are seeing this idea of them almost being a luxury top up which only the vulnerable need rather than the narrative that there is growing evidence of how important and valuable a third dose is. I think its one we will see more concern about in the coming months.
But. We have got people to agree to get vaccinated and who understand its value in a way that hasn't been replicated everywhere. Its not become drawn along political lines.
These are not inconsequential things to be brushed over. So on balance, I think the UK has done badly and it has been luck more than judgement where we’ve done “better”.
I do think thats also unfair.
Luck was always an unknown factor, but also one you could make a certain guesstimation about and I do think we've largely got to grips with the crisis following the January lockdown and roll out of vaccinations. We have had a good idea about how much Delta changed things and what that meant for strategy earlier than most.
I do think that we've done well in other areas which we don't give credit for and I think thats helped other countries. Particularly with regards to testing.
Yes I do think we've got lucky at this point. I also think we got unlucky with alpha too. Yes high cases made it more likely but other countries with high cases haven't all seen similar.
Once we have got on top of initial crisis we have actually faired ok. And our predictions have been decent.
We do need to improve on is preparedness and communications.
[You also don't mention one of the biggest disasters which has been how appalling and costly a centralised track and trace system has been.]
Crisis situations are always much harder to manage if you have poor planning. Given the situation we ended up in at points, I think we've done well to get back to where we are and the position we go into winter 2021/22. That hasn't been easy and I think we should give credit for being able to turn that around to the degree we managed.
Our vaccine rollout has largely been very good on the whole. Decisions we made about the 12 week delay based on research of other vaccines has held up and look excellent. Deciding to open up despite reservations has so far seemed wise.
I think we've had two major phases of pandemic management - the crisis stage and the controlled management stage. If you look at it from that perspective it does give a clearer idea that so many of our issues stem from chronic long term underfunding and that when we invest wisely in terms of time and money we tend to excel. Luck isn't playing a role to the degree you suggest. Its important but not a deciding factor.