One thing is missing from the government’s coronavirus response: an endgame

The failures of Britain’s pandemic planning have been brutally exposed in the past few weeks. The scandalous lack of protective equipment for NHS workers, the failure to prepare for mass testing: there will be plenty of time, when this is over, to apportion blame for all this. But what is even more striking is the achievements of those in the military, the health service and public service who have — in a matter of days — done the seemingly impossible in preparing the NHS to cope with the virus.

A few weeks ago, the world was admiring the ability of the Chinese government to rapidly build a 1,000-bed hospital in Wuhan. Since then the NHS, the British Army and their partners in the private sector have made arrangements for 4,000 beds in a London exhibition centre. The NHS is now well-prepared for the expected surge in Covid-19 cases. Furthermore, the reorganisation within NHS wards has meant that 30,000 beds in existing hospitals have been re-allocated. As a result, there have been no reports of hospitals being overrun.

We are not yet past the worst of this, but ministers are now far more confident that we will avoid a repetition of the scenes in Lombardy. New York may not be so lucky. Doctors there report a chronic shortage of ventilators, dialysis machines, sedating machines and feeding pumps. Some hospitals report four or five patients dying during one emergency shift, with intensive care wards taking on four times their normal load. Donald Trump, who was initially dismissive of the coronavirus threat, is now talking about it taking more American lives than you lose in world wars.