The Guardian view on following viral science: why did we go it alone? | Editorial

People are dying. It is time to give up on the fantasies of British exceptionalism

If there is a simple way of showing how out of step this government is with the rest of the world on coronavirus, it can be found in the gap last week between the five criteria that Dominic Raab said the country must fulfil before the lockdown was lifted and the six tests the World Health Organization set. Missing from Mr Raab's list was that health system capacities ought to be "in place to detect, test, isolate and treat every case and trace every contact".

What divides these two approaches is the "science", which is why claims of following it ring so empty. On one side we have those who believe that testing, tracing and the isolating of infected individuals is needed to defeat coronavirus. In this camp are public health experts such as Anthony Costello of University College London and Jeremy Hunt, the former health secretary.