The UK’s public health response to COVID-19 (15 May 2020)

Summary

Too little, too late, says Scally, Jacobson and Abbasi in this BMJ Editorial on the government's response to COVID-19.

The UK government and its advisers were confident that they were “well prepared” when COVID-19 swept East Asia. The four-pronged plan of 3 March to contain, delay, research, and mitigate was supported by all UK countries and backed, they claimed, by science. With over 30 000 hospital and community deaths by 12 May, where did the plan go wrong? What was the role of public health in the biggest public health crisis since the Spanish flu of 1918? And what now needs to be done?