The speed of spread of covid-19 certainly shows up the vulnerabilities of our society over the last 50 years. Fast and cheap air travel has proven to be a vulnerability and the UK amongst others have shown that a lazy government can make the issue far worse by not closing the borders and checking all travelers.
The lack of a decisive lockdown in the UK points towards the lack of control of the government, or the dislike of government control, and this is also the case in the USA where known covid-19 deaths are almost at the level of Spain.
China locked down very quickly which restricted their recorded deaths although the number may be massaged by the government. South Korea instigated a policy of mass testing which seems to have worked well enough.
I have to disagree. I think the UK government at all times has followed scientific guidance, they've been willing to adapt their approach as required and they have been transparent in doing so. You suggest it was late for the UK to act, but the UK was late in contracting the virus, we were at a completely different stage in the battle, the government was performing contact tracing and quarantine prior to the lockdown (the clue was in the "Containment" name of the phase), and at the time there was limited evidence of asymptomatic transmission.
The moment it became apparent asymptomatic transmission could occur, we moved to Delay, performing contact tracing on limited communities e.g. care homes and set about a gradual reduction in the amounts of social interaction.
"Herd immunity" you may scoff... but that is still the
ONLY plan on the table for the entire world. In the East where they performed actions like welding shut doors on apartment blocks to contain the infected (the government did provide food and water to them though for the duration) and implemented road blocks around cities, they are now fighting against resurgences of the virus and it only takes one missed contact trace, or one bypass of a lockdown (Italy is a prime example of this - they did not lock down the entire country at once) for it all to go wrong and they'll be fighting a second or third wave.
In the West, every single country has adopted the view that in the absence of a vaccine they need to infect a majority of their population, whilst not overwhelming their health services.
The government got a lot of heat for not closing the schools down a week earlier than they did especially as they brought in social distancing measures for the rest of the UK population but it made complete sense. Schools are controlled outlets of the disease, limited numbers, they are the least adversely affected population according to all reports and Schools provide the key role of daycare for essential workers. They were in effect the sluice gates to the dam of social distancing.
When a dam is about to burst, you don't shut everything and let it come over the top flooding the valleys below. You keep the water draining in the hopes that although it is an increased flow, less death and loss of property occurs. This was no different.
All the government needed was for people to follow the advice and clear out of pubs and public areas, shield older populations and stay home, letting the kids who are less likely to die from this disease, act as spreaders to people who are of child bearing age. The majority of which will be nearer their 30's than their 60s again a lower mortality rate.
Shield the older generations and bobs you're uncle, we'll have most of the people infected, hopefully with milder symptoms and sufficient NHS capacity to assist those who have more severe symptoms, quickly and without risking the health of the older generations.
Immunity in relation to SARS and MERS is measured in years, for many other viruses it is decades. The mere fact that your body has recovered without assistance from external anti-virals is sufficient to assume at least for the short term, your body will now effectively fight off an exposure to a moderate viral load. That isn't to say you can't get it again, that is to say your body has some resistance to it, which is all immunity is.
Ultimately the aim is still to simply ride it out. It always has been and every single western government is following suit. The only places where they've done "lockdowns" in more controlled states are now seeing incidents of resurgence within small areas, it only takes one missed contact trace to cause a huge second spike once again.
The world's plan right now is to keep infection rates from spiralling but not to eliminate them, until such point that most of us have been infected and are showing some level of resistance to the virus. At which point, Covid-19 won't be able to establish sufficient footholds within the global population to cause further pandemics or public health crises.
There have been failings by the UK government, but on actions and timelines, I think our Government has done the one thing
ALL governments should do and that is listen to their scientific advice and crucially... (which the US is not great at right now),
BE ACCEPTING OF CHANGE. It is okay to reassess a situation and change stance, which is something the UK Press seems to consider as a negative?! which is absolutely bloody mental.
"So you got it wrong then?"
"The data changed, we reviewed it, we changed our approach"
"So we took the wrong approach first then?"
"No... we took the right approach then, and we're taking the right approach now. Situations change"
It's almost like the UK press would prefer our government be on rails.