Positive thinking

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently suggested that coronavirus infections are higher in the UK than Germany or Italy because Britons love freedom more, and find it harder to adhere to control measures. Unsurprisingly, this view has attracted a lot of criticism. Some have argued that Germany and Italy love freedom just as much as the UK. Others suggest the difference is down to the quality of these countries’ test and trace systems. There’s no hard evidence to prove Boris Johnson wrong, but across the Atlantic, economist Paul Krugman has suggested something similar. The US’s poor pandemic response, he says, is down to politicians and policy failing to get people to act responsibly. Loving freedom is, in his eyes, the excuse for “America’s cult of selfishness”. While we can’t 100% pinpoint the reasons behind the high case numbers in Britain and America, it’s interesting to see the UK prime minister and a Nobel laureate making similar arguments. Just how plausible are their cla...

Leading researchers warned almost two months ago that the test for COVID-19 used by the NHS and Public Health England was “significantly less sensitive” than other commercial tests. The research found a “lower rate of detection” in the UK test – especially in people with rare lung conditions – warning that this lower performance could help “propagate the epidemic”. The government is already under pressure to explain why the UK has continued to use COVID-19 tests known to be less reliable than commercial alternatives – while infection and death rates have surged. This week openDemocracy published leaked internal documents showing that due to “discordant results”, all NHS and Public Health England labs were ordered to urgently switch to commercially available testing kits by 23 April. That deadline has now been missed. A leading pathologist told openDemocracy that the NHS test’s lesser sensitivity meant it would “miss 25%” of positive results. Public Health England disputes th...