The Guardian view on tackling the coronavirus: get the basics right | Editorial
Other democracies have kept death tolls low by using a combination of social distancing, tight travel restrictions, mass testing and contact tracing. Why can't the UK?
In the late 1980s, the biggest medical puzzle of the day was how to design an HIV vaccine. Dozens of well-funded laboratories were on the case and a solution seemed within the grasp of researchers. Thirty years on and there's no HIV vaccine. This sobering fact ought to bring us up short. We want to believe that a treatment for Covid-19 is just around the corner. But we must steel ourselves that a vaccine, as the head of the Wellcome Trust warned, is not a given.
While no expense should be spared to find a vaccine, the UK government must also display the wherewithal to design an administrative system to support and enable the public to live with this threat. That means getting the basics right. So far the signs have not been good. In Britain, everywhere you look you see a state overstretched and driven by politicians' panic rather than careful planning.
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