Hello government - Is there anybody there?

The interests of national security dictate that someone is in charge, even if they don’t come on television to announce it.
I think despite the apparent resurgence in other European countries, the present strategy of local response to clusters is the right one, coupled with increased testing & rapid tracing of contacts, and quarantine requirements for anyone entering the country from somewhere with a high prevalence.
Of course, that isn’t helped when people go to the pub and leave false names and addresses, or continue to attend illegal parties, or complain about having to wear face masks in public.

It must be an incredibly hard job to balance individuals’ health against the economic health of their community, and individual freedom against forced compliance.

I listened to an interview with Bill Gates the other day. When asked why America had got it so wrong, he gave a deep sigh and said ‘We chose freedom.’

If you test more you’ll get more results - some of which will be positive.

74% of those with Covid have no symptoms.

Professor Carl Heneghan (SAGE scientist) predicted two months ago the virus would weaken in Europe and the USA and said those contracting Covid would be less poorly as a result.

I don't think the genome helped with deciding the best treatment. Time and experience over the last few months have helped with that. I think the genome has helped with vaccine research but I'm happy to be corrected about that if someone is better informed.

Given the response in most countries has been pretty similar to thr UK's response, give or take a few days here and there, and taking away isolated places like New Zealand that are not global hubs and therefore pretty easy to shut to the rest of the world.... given that, I don't think a blame game is going to help.

That said, why weren't PHE prepared for a global pandemic? I thought that was their main reason for existence.

Traditionally, Tory ministers would have been on the grouse moors now, but I can’t imagine any of this lot being trusted with a gun, given their propensity for shooting themselves in the foot. They’re probably not-social-distancing on beaches.

I don’t agree.
Fewer hospitalisations can be the result of more efficient and early diagnosis, a different demographic of positive cases, different protocols in different circumstances.
Fewer deaths is almost certainly a result of better and more targeted treatment, better understanding of how the virus affects different organs, the reduction of early ventilator use, again a different demographic and some of the drug therapies which have been found to be effective.
The spread of the virus is one of the things public health is primarily concerned with - whether or not people die from it is to do with a number of variables.
You say if we are not prepared now, we never will be.
Well, despite having access to the entire genome of the virus back in January, we were still not prepared.
PPE? We heard recently that huge quantities have been discovered to be of inferior quality and rejected - were we/are we prepared? Has that been replaced?
MPs get a generous holiday allowance by any standard and I hope they will return refreshed and invigorated, but who is minding the store?

Cases are not necessarily important. Hospital admissions needing Covid treatment and the daily Covid death rate are what we need to know to be able to tell whether the number of cases matters.

Besides which, if we are not prepared now for dealing with Covid needs, we never will be.

Even MPs need holidays (breaks from the daily grind), especially in a year like this one.