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How politics thwarted the UK’s Covid-19 response
Ministers failed to grasp the threat as Boris Johnson tried to swerve a tough response
Philip Stephens APRIL 23 2020
Source:https://www.ft.com/content/af17147c-84a1-11ea-b555-37a289098206
When the inevitable national inquiry reports into Britain’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, the first item on the charge sheet will be a failure to act decisively at the outset to suppress the pandemic.Some Whitehall insiders call this a stumble, a passing hesitation. Some talk about reckless complacency. Others observe laconically that Prime Minister Boris Johnson does not react well to bad news.
Britain lagged behind most of Europe in the spread of the infection. Yet, in spite of the lessons to be drawn from Italy and elsewhere, it has one of the highest death rates outside of the US. Management failures in procurement and distribution compounded political mistakes in depriving it of critical resources such as ventilators, testing capacity and personal safety equipment.
The postmortem, one old Whitehall hand says, will be “bloody”. Ministers and political aides are already privately shuffling off responsibility to institutions such as Public Health England and the civil service, suggesting they have been slow to react to fast-moving events. Prudent officials say they are keeping detailed personal diaries to record the advice they offered to Mr Johnson and his ministers.
Some mistakes were inevitable. Covid-19 is a new disease. There were genuine uncertainties and differences among epidemiologists. The UK is not alone in facing problems. Scientists often disagree with each other. So do clinicians and public health experts. And Britain is caught up in the worldwide scramble for essential equipment to treat patients.
The crisis has also exposed longstanding structural weaknesses. The top jobs in Whitehall go to talented policymakers rather than managers schooled in complex logistics. Public Health England has stuck rigidly to “peacetime” rules on equipment standards when the nation is fighting what officials call a war. A decade-long financial squeeze has left the National Health Service ill-equipped.
Standing above all the tactical mis-steps, however, was the strategic misjudgment made by Mr Johnson and his colleagues at the outset. Until well into March ministers refused to grip the gravity of the threat because Mr Johnson did not want to contemplate a draconian response.
This failure was evident in February when Mr Johnson chose not to attend several meetings of the emergency ministerial group Cobra. It has haunted the UK’s effort ever since, helping to explain why, even now, the pandemic is sweeping through care centres for the elderly, why medics and care workers are scrabbling for safety clothing when treating Covid-19 patients, and why Britain is behind nations such as Germany in mapping the virus through testing and contact tracing.
In the words of one top official: “Every road leads back to the slow start.” Britain has been “behind every curve”, another insider says. One consequence was a failure to build up testing capacity, another that it came late to the global competition for ventilators and protective clothing.
Mr Johnson’s breezy confidence was on display in early March when he volunteered that he had been “shaking hands with everybody” during a hospital visit. He said everything about Britain’s response — its scientists, the NHS, its testing and surveillance — was “fantastic”. Britain could busk its way through the crisis.
The prime minister’s default response to bad news, say officials who have worked closely with him, is a cheerful assertion that things will sort themselves out. Even as the virus took hold in early March, he was horrified, a ministerial colleague says, by the idea of imposing shutdowns or quarantines.
For a time, the advice of two leading scientists unwittingly conspired with this approach. While other nations followed Italy into lockdown, chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance and Christopher Whitty, the NHS’s chief scientist, backed a strategy of “mitigation”.
Generalised testing was halted in favour of a policy of self-isolation and efforts to shield the most vulnerable. The goal was “herd immunity”. In Sir Patrick’s description: “Our aim is to try to reduce the peak, broaden the peak, not suppress it completely; also, because the vast majority of people get a mild illness, to build up some kind of herd immunity so more people are immune”.
Other scientists argued the strategy was better suited to a seasonal flu epidemic. With Covid-19, it would threaten hundreds of thousands of potential deaths and overwhelm the NHS. By the time this view prevailed, the virus had taken firm hold. The prime minister was among the victims.
The U-turn might have led to a candid conversation with the nation to rebuild public confidence. Instead ministers persist with a never-give-an-inch communications strategy more suited to election campaigns. Every mistake invites a denial. Targets for testing and equipment are missed and promises broken.
After a period of recuperation, Mr Johnson is preparing to return to his desk. His ministers have fallen to arguing about when to relax the lockdown. The answer should be obvious. The government should proceed with extreme caution. It should follow the example of Germany in sharing the uncertainties with citizens. The choice between beating the virus and economic recovery is a false one. The government must start telling the full truth.
Ministers failed to grasp the threat as Boris Johnson tried to swerve a tough response
Philip Stephens APRIL 23 2020
Source:https://www.ft.com/content/af17147c-84a1-11ea-b555-37a289098206
When the inevitable national inquiry reports into Britain’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, the first item on the charge sheet will be a failure to act decisively at the outset to suppress the pandemic.Some Whitehall insiders call this a stumble, a passing hesitation. Some talk about reckless complacency. Others observe laconically that Prime Minister Boris Johnson does not react well to bad news.
Britain lagged behind most of Europe in the spread of the infection. Yet, in spite of the lessons to be drawn from Italy and elsewhere, it has one of the highest death rates outside of the US. Management failures in procurement and distribution compounded political mistakes in depriving it of critical resources such as ventilators, testing capacity and personal safety equipment.
The postmortem, one old Whitehall hand says, will be “bloody”. Ministers and political aides are already privately shuffling off responsibility to institutions such as Public Health England and the civil service, suggesting they have been slow to react to fast-moving events. Prudent officials say they are keeping detailed personal diaries to record the advice they offered to Mr Johnson and his ministers.
Some mistakes were inevitable. Covid-19 is a new disease. There were genuine uncertainties and differences among epidemiologists. The UK is not alone in facing problems. Scientists often disagree with each other. So do clinicians and public health experts. And Britain is caught up in the worldwide scramble for essential equipment to treat patients.
The crisis has also exposed longstanding structural weaknesses. The top jobs in Whitehall go to talented policymakers rather than managers schooled in complex logistics. Public Health England has stuck rigidly to “peacetime” rules on equipment standards when the nation is fighting what officials call a war. A decade-long financial squeeze has left the National Health Service ill-equipped.
Standing above all the tactical mis-steps, however, was the strategic misjudgment made by Mr Johnson and his colleagues at the outset. Until well into March ministers refused to grip the gravity of the threat because Mr Johnson did not want to contemplate a draconian response.
This failure was evident in February when Mr Johnson chose not to attend several meetings of the emergency ministerial group Cobra. It has haunted the UK’s effort ever since, helping to explain why, even now, the pandemic is sweeping through care centres for the elderly, why medics and care workers are scrabbling for safety clothing when treating Covid-19 patients, and why Britain is behind nations such as Germany in mapping the virus through testing and contact tracing.
In the words of one top official: “Every road leads back to the slow start.” Britain has been “behind every curve”, another insider says. One consequence was a failure to build up testing capacity, another that it came late to the global competition for ventilators and protective clothing.
Mr Johnson’s breezy confidence was on display in early March when he volunteered that he had been “shaking hands with everybody” during a hospital visit. He said everything about Britain’s response — its scientists, the NHS, its testing and surveillance — was “fantastic”. Britain could busk its way through the crisis.
The prime minister’s default response to bad news, say officials who have worked closely with him, is a cheerful assertion that things will sort themselves out. Even as the virus took hold in early March, he was horrified, a ministerial colleague says, by the idea of imposing shutdowns or quarantines.
For a time, the advice of two leading scientists unwittingly conspired with this approach. While other nations followed Italy into lockdown, chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance and Christopher Whitty, the NHS’s chief scientist, backed a strategy of “mitigation”.
Generalised testing was halted in favour of a policy of self-isolation and efforts to shield the most vulnerable. The goal was “herd immunity”. In Sir Patrick’s description: “Our aim is to try to reduce the peak, broaden the peak, not suppress it completely; also, because the vast majority of people get a mild illness, to build up some kind of herd immunity so more people are immune”.
Other scientists argued the strategy was better suited to a seasonal flu epidemic. With Covid-19, it would threaten hundreds of thousands of potential deaths and overwhelm the NHS. By the time this view prevailed, the virus had taken firm hold. The prime minister was among the victims.
The U-turn might have led to a candid conversation with the nation to rebuild public confidence. Instead ministers persist with a never-give-an-inch communications strategy more suited to election campaigns. Every mistake invites a denial. Targets for testing and equipment are missed and promises broken.
After a period of recuperation, Mr Johnson is preparing to return to his desk. His ministers have fallen to arguing about when to relax the lockdown. The answer should be obvious. The government should proceed with extreme caution. It should follow the example of Germany in sharing the uncertainties with citizens. The choice between beating the virus and economic recovery is a false one. The government must start telling the full truth.
