I think that's a fair point. But you can't just will reality either. So clearly mistakes were made here with the easing off. Probably the biggest mistake throughout being the failure to control movement, travel exemptions for rich businesspeople, etc. And once you've failed at that one thing, lots of other measures become rather futile exercises.
Political will does shape reality though.
i wont go through every mistake now, and happily for both of us I hope to avoid arguing with you with the same tone I have used at times in the past. So I'll just tackle a few of the issues by way of an imaginary scenario where I was in charge of the nations pandemic response.
It would have been a real struggle to get the establishment and everyone fully on board with my expectations and what needed to be done early on. My window of opportunity would have opened once Italy actually noticed that Covid-19 deaths were occurring there. It would have been pretty easy to lockdown in March one week earlier than we actually did. With a bit of effort and the right framing it would have been possible to lockdown 2 weeks earlier than we actually did, and to have brought in some other, less than full lockdown measures some days earlier still.
The summer would have been challenging for me, especially as earlier lockdown would have been expected to reduce the amount of death seen, and as a consequence of that probably also peoples sense of quite how bad this pandemic virus was. There were economic and morale reasons why I'd have had to go against some of my instincts and allow more relaxation of measures than I was happy with. It would have been a bit easier to justify if the test & trace system was in better shape at the time, although as you know I've warned that such systems can only carry the burden if leaders pay proper attention to the data that comes out of that system and are prepared to use such data to slam the brakes on quickly if required. I suspect the way I would have tackled the summer relaation measures would have involved a clearly stated bargain with people, including people who had more optimistic views and hopes pinned on levels of population immunity already acquired etc. The bargain would have been in the form of 'ok we will relax all this stuff now, but only on the basis that if warning signs emerge that infection levels are increasing again, we act strongly to nip that resurgence in the bud'. The government even used language that wasnt so very different to that really, but they were not sincere about it.
Large sections of the press in this country would have been a major issue for me. Part of the pre-pandemic poisonous landscape, part of the political dance in this country. The hurdles they imposed are not insurmountable, and this is another area where if the public messaging is done right all the way along, there is goodwill and trust that can be used to overcome the loud press message from shitheads. And it is possible to demonstrate to people that trying to avoid strong measures for the sake of avoiding the 'indirect pandemic deaths (from lonliness, recessions etc) is a false economy, that we end up with longer lockdowns when we dont act early enough, etc. So I would not surrender any of that territory to the rabid press without a fight.
As for futile exercises, I suppose there are some, but most of the time even the worst failings in some areas do not completely negate stuff that can still be done. Better border control etc would indeed have made a difference, especially if it enabled our feeble initial testing system to cope with demand. Without them, we had to slam the brakes on harder in other ways when the time came. One possible reason why Germany did relatively well the first time and not well the second time is that their test & trace system gave them a better view and degree of control over early virus case imports. So when they locked down at roughly the same time in calendar terms as other countries in Europe, they were actually locking down earlier than many others relative to the size and stage of epidemic wave reached at the time. Things didnt work out for them in the same way with wave 2.
Incentivising the self-isolation system is another obvious area that could have been a real difference-maker, especially if a different approach had been taken about who should still be going to work, and how seriously infection control in workplaces should be taken (ie not the joke that is the covid-secure fig leaf). Much is doable on this front even now, and even with the crap political landscape in this country. Political will is the main missing ingredient. Other missing ingredients include people within the establishment treating the notion of opposition in a way that goes beyond political games and parliamentary opposition thats more about posturing than actually trying to stop deadly policies. And indeed people in important pandemic advisory positions resigning on matters of principal at key moments.
). The other thing is, this all has a bearing on whether there will be a reckoning. At one level, even if every word of that article found its way into the inevitable Covid Inquiry the Tories will, essentially, shrug their shoulders and ignore it - they have the numbers in Parliament. That's another aspect of the old politics that has disappeared, politicians don't take responsibility for their actions, however deadly. But more than that, the very diffusion of regulation that is part of the problem allows them to deflect the blame ('no one individual... lessons learned... officials should have... co-ordination issues... communication needs to be... partner agencies... hold a review').
