Britain Deserves Some Credit for Leading the Covid-19 Fight
Boris Johnson may have had his stumbles during the pandemic, but the U.K. has still made some big breakthroughs. For that we can all be thankful.
A belated thanks.
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When it comes to managing Covid-19, few countries have a spotless record. This includes the U.K., where early mixed messages from Prime Minister Boris Johnson, too-soon reopenings later on and some potentially risky vaccine strategies marred the response. I have been critical, for instance, of Britain’s decision to extend the dosing interval of the Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE vaccine without any data to back it. But despite the U.K.’s stumbles, there is still much to admire in its strategies for tackling Covid and it’s worth pointing them out.
However vilified Britain’s National Health Service is at times by its citizens, the centralized health-care system — combined with the U.K.’s capabilities in genomic sequencing and well-run vaccine task force — has enabled the country to make significant contributions to the understanding of Covid-19. Even the vaccine decision I have questioned may pay off. Here’s a short list of successes: