An Analysis of UK Government's COVID-19 Policies During Pandemic

This report provides an analysis comparing two articles that discuss the UK government's decisions and policies implemented to combat the spread of COVID-19. The first article focuses on the public's reaction to social distancing and the government's methods, highlighting the importance of public support for successful policy implementation and the retreat approach adopted by the UK government. The second article criticizes the government's handling of the crisis, pointing out delayed actions, underfunded healthcare departments, and the prioritization of politics over public health, leading to a high death toll. The report concludes that while the government took a different approach, the precautionary measures were inadequate, and the focus on populism over prevention resulted in poor crisis management.

Comparing Articles

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Article 1.......................................................................................................................................3
Article 2.......................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

Introduction
In this report an analysis is made by comparing two different articles relating the decisions
of the government of UK to prevent spread of COVID-19.
MAIN BODY
Article 1
The article is written by Nick Chater, in which he, put focus on the people reaction of
social distancing and methods of the UK government to fight COVID-19. Governments of the
nations in the times of crisis need to take actions, advice and make understand people of the
country about the restrictions and guidelines. This helps people to coordinate to achieve the
common objective to prevent and end the spread of COVID-19. The article tells about the
importance of support of the people of UK for the successful implementation of government
policies. At the time of national crisis cumulative resistance is observed by the population. The
governments of the world is divided in to difference in the opinion and approach to fight
COVID-19 i.e. action and retreat. The action approach is taken by implementation of the
lockdown in many of the countries that had affected by pandemic. Continuous monitoring of the
action is made and prevention of the COVID-19 is a priority. On the contrary the retreat
approach is seen as complete surrender where resistance is futile (Capano and et.al, 2020). The
UK government policy is based on this approach. According to this the COVID-19 is seen as
unstoppable that is not affected by the preventive measures. It has been estimated that most of
the population is affected by the virus and the ultimate result is the herd immunity within the
population. The government policy ensure that the old age people and those who are exposed to
the virus. The best course of action is chosen to cope with the uncertainties. It had been observed
that the people of UK showed that they are capable of maintaining unity for years when the
national crisis occur. The retreat approach is hard to implement as the society and communities
have to ready itself to understand and accept that the infection and deaths are unavoidable. When
the mortality rate of the UK started to shift the fear among the people rise and pressure was
started building upon the UK government to change the policy (People won't get 'tired' of social
distancing – the government is wrong to suggest otherwise, 2021). The government took a
gamble to not impose any firm policy to stop the spread of virus in the faith that the virus is
unstoppable. The decision may be correct but the underlying principle of right choice under
crisis situation is to select those alternative that are flexible and its outcome is right. The

government is surely aware of the fact that the outbreak of the virus is new and fatal to the
population. To understand the effect of the COVID-19 the government had taken the retreat
approach to analyse its effects on the population to device appropriate strategies to cope with the
challenges arise from the virus. Although the strategy is a sign of the behavioural fatigue as
extreme measures are not taken to stop the outbreak of the virus in UK but it help in
understanding the fatality of the virus and accordingly the UK government had taken the
precautionary measures to defeat the COVID-19.
Article 2
It highlights the how government of UK handling the COVID-19 crisis. In UK at the peak of
the spread of the virus around 1000 people died in a day. The government had taken this crisis
lightly and the death toll in UK exceeds the expectations and becomes one of the worst. The
government officials are not taking the responsibility of their poor policy making and decisions.
The NHS testing centres were not operating in its full capacity and observers have seen it as a
sign that the government is putting politics above prevention and management of the COVID-19
pandemic. Multiple relaxations in the lock-downs are provided so that the negligence has been
distracted and the government did not lose its good image (The Observer view on the
government's handling of the Covid-19 crisis, 2021). UK is seen to be one of the prominent in
the world in the public health and pandemic management. The government in the past years had
reduced the funding to the concerned department which results in the poor management of the
health care departments. The World Health Organisation has given continuous warnings about
the spread and fatality of the pandemic but the government had not taken it seriously. Instead of
taking serious preventive measures the government had taken the different approach and allowed
to spread the COVID-19 in the population of UK in a good faith that herd immunity among the
people will developed. In lieu of this the government had taken very late decision to impose
lockdowns to prevent and reduce the spread of virus. The failure to fulfil adequate supply of the
protective equipment for the employees of the health and care facilities exposed the inefficient
structure of NHS. The government to give more emphasis on the politics make the decision of
providing relaxation in the lockdowns in several areas to gain political advantage. Scientific
warnings of the multiplication of virus due to this action is totally ignored to fulfil this agenda.
The government and the prime minister had been criticised for being slow in taking the decision
making (Panovska-Griffiths and et.al, 2020). Warnings were to be ignored and as soon as the

spread of the infection begin to ease the UK government had made a policy changes and allowed
the schools to reopen with relaxation in the physical distancing norms. If the government of UK
had shown incompetency to deal with the global pandemic which results in the deaths of the
thousands of people in UK. They have to take more stringent action to not allowed COVID-19 to
spread so recklessly.
Conclusion
From the above analysis it has been concluded that although the government of UK had
taken a different approach to let the COVID-19 virus spread among the people to achieve herd
immunity, the precautionary measures and rules to prevent unnecessary deaths in UK is
inadequate. The UK government ignored the warnings and put focus on populism over the
prevention of COVID-19 spread which will result in the loss and criticism of poor management
of the crisis.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Capano and et.al, 2020. Mobilizing policy (in) capacity to fight COVID-19: Understanding
variations in state responses. Policy and Society, 39(3), pp.285-308.
Panovska-Griffiths and et.al, 2020. Determining the optimal strategy for reopening schools, the
impact of test and trace interventions, and the risk of occurrence of a second COVID-19
epidemic wave in the UK: a modelling study. The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, 4(11),
pp.817-827.
Online
People won't get 'tired' of social distancing – the government is wrong to suggest otherwise,
2021. [Online]. Available through
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/16/social-distancing-coronavirus-stay-
home-government/>
The Observer view on the government's handling of the Covid-19 crisis, 2021. [Online].
Available through <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/07/the-observer-
view-on-the-governments-handling-of-the-covid-19-crisis/>