The main issue is that if the government had done their fucking jobs properly, every single one of those deaths could have been prevented.

We’ve known the NHS wasn’t properly equipped to handle a pandemic for years. We’ve known a flu or flu-like illness jumping from animals to humans and causing a pandemic was a serious risk for years. We’ve seen how SARS and MERS played out, and seen what was effective and what wasn’t effective at controlling those outbreaks years ago. We’ve known that a highly contagious new virus was floating around in China for several months before we did anything. And when we did do something, we did it half-arsed, and even then high level government officials decided it didn’t apply to them.

Practically every single COVID death in the UK was preventable, with the exception of those that almost certainly happened around November - February before we realised the extent of the virus’s spread.