Covid-19 and the Stiff Upper Lip — The Pandemic Response in the United Kingdom (from NEJM)

COVID-19 Science News and Views Note 2.

I thought of referring to an Editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine published on March 20,2020. You may wonder why I am charmed by such an "obsolete" piece of information.

The NEJM has pulled up the British Government because it did not take prompt measures to contain the contagion as it depended on a model enunciated by experts. The Editorial ended thus:

"Throughout the past few *weeks, the U.K. mantra has been “we will act at the appropriate time according to the science.” Many clinicians and scientists have been pushing the panic button, but the alarm, if heard, was not acted on publicly until the third week of March. Everyone is hoping that their gut instincts, the experience of other countries, and now the models are wrong. What is not in doubt is that barring a miracle, a treatment, and ultimately a vaccine, the NHS in the United Kingdom is about to experience a challenge unlike any other in its 70 years of existence." (* past few weeks meant before March 20,2020 the date of the Editorial!) Here is the link to the Editorial https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2005755 :