PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK
As of May 2021, the tide of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be dramatically turning in the United Kingdom.
With more than half the population vaccinated, infection and death rates precipitously dropping and a cautious return to normality in progress, there’s understandable excitement in the air.
Fueled by the robust National Health Service and continued cooperation among politicians, scientists and the public, the UK’s recent pandemic success inspires research and policy throughout the developed world.
Amid Brexit turbulence, there is hope that the United Kingdom can successfully parlay this domestic revival of health and prosperity into a reaffirmation of its place in the global hierarchy.
Yet, to view these victories in a vacuum would be disingenuous. Narrow-minded, even.
If you ask many Britons, they will be quick to mention hardships of the past year: the loss of livelihoods, pastimes and basic freedoms; the wrath of a devastating, homegrown variant; the demise of far too many loved ones.
As things stand, this balance of promise and tragedy marks a new phase of their pandemic.
With the dark, vaccine-less times behind them and a tantalizing world of inoculated freedom ahead, the UK cautiously marches toward the light.
But how did they arrive at this moment? Why did the pandemic so thoroughly rock Boris Johnson and the UK government? And how did British exceptionalism spur a globally respected vaccination effort?
To understand these critical answers and more, let’s analyze some of the defining moments of COVID-19 in the UK (so far):
In the UK, the early weeks of the global COVID-19 outbreak felt like a distant worry.
Drawing similarities to SARS or Bird Flu, many Britons quickly deemed the novel coronavirus the concern of its native China, a country with a history of epidemics.
After all, those diseases made their way to British soil, but they never disrupted daily life in any irrevocable way.
Further assuaging citizens were the assured, pacifying words of Conservative British leaders.
On January 23, 2020, under Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s guidance, Health Secretary Matt Hancock urged trust, declaring, “the UK is always well-prepared for these types of outbreaks.”
Despite noted concerns of “a global pandemic” from Labour MP and Shadow Minister for Public Health, Sharon Hodgson, Hancock claimed the British government would apply “proportionate, precautionary measures” to prevent a severe outbreak.
But, as we all know, the virus had other plans:
On January 29, days after flying into the UK from China’s Hubei Province, a Chinese woman, 50, and her 23-year-old son, a student at England’s University of York, called the National Health Service (NHS) to report fevers, sore throats and coughs.
On January 31, they arrived at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary, where COVID-19 tests were quickly administered.
The results: positive, positive. The student and his mother became the NHS’s first pandemic patients.
While public opinion and government messaging would be slow to change in the days and weeks to follow, the virus had taken its first bites out of the United Kingdom.
There were many more to come.
If the first British cases sparked fear, those of PM Boris Johnson and Health Secretary Matt Hancock set it ablaze.
For more than a month prior to their positive tests, Johnson and Hancock, the faces of the British pandemic response, were hesitant to implement severe restrictions.
Following the guidance of their scientific team, they avoided lockdowns like those in other prosperous countries. Regular life continued:
Cheltenham Festival, an event drawing over 60,000 attendees per day, ran without interruption from March 10-13, 2020. English Premier League matches, drawing ~30,000 fans each, were held until March 13. Cafes, pubs and restaurants were open for in-person dining until March 20.
If these lingering signs of normality brought comfort to the British public, it was the positive tests of Hancock and Johnson that ripped it away.
Though Hancock pulled through the virus relatively unscathed, reporting feelings of “having glass” in his throat and the loss of a stone (14 lbs.) in weight, Johnson was less fortunate.
In the first days after his diagnosis, the prime minister battled only minor symptoms like fever and fatigue, but the situation would significantly worsen.
On April 5, more than a week after his initial diagnosis, Boris Johnson was admitted to London’s St. Thomas Hospital as a “precautionary step.”
Fighting for his life in the ICU, the prime minister needed oxygen, excellent care and good fortune to spur a remarkable recovery.
When he was finally discharged on April 12, certainly worse for the wear, the pandemic had taken on a far grimmer tone in the UK.
If winter and spring swept COVID-19 into the UK with gale and thunderbolts, summer moved the pandemic into the eye of the storm.
Following a three-month lockdown that saw exponential rises in cases and deaths, an economic downturn and a brush with death for the PM himself, Boris Johnson publicized the easing of lockdown restrictions and the end of a “national hibernation” on June 23, 2020.
The move marked a cautious return to relative normality for the UK.
From July 4, restaurants, hotels, hair salons and other vital businesses could provide their much-needed services. Entertainment venues like cinemas, museums and theme parks could welcome fun-starved customers. Community centers and places of worship could provide socially distanced chances to reconnect.
In the eyes of Johnson and his Conservative allies, these steps were prudent, science-based progressions of the pandemic:
New daily cases had dropped substantially from their peak of nearly 5,000 to just over 1,000, and daily deaths tumbled from highs over 1,000 to significantly reduced levels -- bottoming out at 14 on June 22.
While some of the UK’s top scientific advisors supported the changes, others responded with consternation.
The primary epidemiological snag in the UK plan was the decision to reduce social distancing guidelines from two meters to one (~3 feet).
Implemented to facilitate an economic bounce-back, the reduction drew the ire of SAGE, a top scientific advisory group to the British government and an ardent supporter of harsher restrictions.
In a June report, SAGE vocalized their concerns:
With careful language, the group stated, “best current evidence suggests that 1m carries between 2 and 10 times the risk of 2m of separation.”
But as often does, economic, political and social priorities trumped scientific hesitancy.
Restrictions loosened, and the UK reopened to modified normality and the semi-warmth of a British summer.
Infection and death rates remained remarkably low until early autumn, the economy perked up and light appeared at the end of the tunnel.
As the promise of vaccinations glittered on the horizon, the UK approached the second half of 2020 with a renewed sense of hope.
In the United Kingdom, there’s little doubt that December 2, 2020 was a critical turning point in its war on the virus.
A shining example of British exceptionalism, this date marks the UK’s remarkable victory in the Western race to approve a COVID-19 vaccine.
In a year of political setbacks, scientific confusion and immense personal losses, the UK’s emergency authorization of the Pfizer vaccine gave citizens the hope they desperately needed.
As emphasized by Health Secretary Matt Hancock, the development “marked a new chapter in [the British] fight against the virus” and represented “a monumental step forward” on the path to national recovery.
Considering their much-derided early pandemic response, the Pfizer approval was also a political victory in the eyes of the UK’s Conservative Party.
For Matt Hancock, Boris Johnson and Parliament allies, their success symbolized the power and flexibility of a post-Brexit, uniquely independent UK:
The British vaccine approval came to be, in no small part, through a lack of oversight from plodding regulators in the EU, which had been notably slow to approve COVID-19 vaccines.
Similarly, the UK benefitted from a lack of scientific red tape that delayed US vaccine approval at the likely expense of increased American infections and deaths.
On a more personal level, though, the British victory in the vaccine race elicited national pride and a sense of genuine hope.
It demonstrated the UK’s scientific prowess and unity in the face of immense difficulties. It reiterated to the world that British influence still mattered. Most importantly, it meant Britons were one step closer to inoculated freedom.
But as this pandemic has repeatedly proven, good news is often short-lived:
While the NHS and the British government rushed to develop their vaccine rollout and fought to stamp out the fires of remaining cases, the light of a far larger blaze -- ignited by the “Kent variant” -- loomed ahead.
The now-infamous “Kent variant” was first identified in September 2020 by scientists at the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium.
Its discovery came through an alliance of scientists, health agencies and the British government aimed at analyzing and sequencing genomes of SARS-CoV-2 for research and health purposes.
At the time, little was known about the variant, scientifically labeled “B.1.1.7,” and it elicited neither tremendous concern nor publicity.
Unfortunately, this changed dramatically:
In the autumn months following its initial sequencing, the variant spread throughout the UK -- unbeknownst to the general public.
While scientists and government agencies scrambled to track and sequence cases as quickly as possible, they were unsuccessful in their attempts to stamp out the variant.
To the grave concern of all involved, their efforts also revealed sobering truths: B.1.1.7 was up to 70% more transmissible than past variants and potentially deadlier.
By the time the British government publicized the variant’s discovery on December 14, there was little anyone could do to prevent the inevitable: a tsunami of COVID-19 like they had never seen before.
Over a long, dark winter, the United Kingdom became a global epicenter of the pandemic.
Despite the ceaseless efforts of the National Health Service, government agencies and citizens obeying lockdowns, the Kent variant strengthened its vicious grip on the British public.
Between the announcement of the variant in December and the soft reopening of the UK in early March, B.1.1.7 spread like wildfire:
In January, daily infections peaked at over 67,000, daily COVID-19 hospitalizations surged above 4,500 and daily deaths came to a head around 1,800 -- unthinkable levels before the arrival of the variant.
Over the nearly three-month surge, case totals increased by a ghastly 125% and death totals skyrocketed by 93%, initiating the construction of overflow morgues.
At one point, the UK had a higher per capita death toll than any other major country in the world. For British people immensely proud of their many singular achievements, this statistic brought shame and horror.
Internationally, numerous countries banned Britons from entry, treating them with a caution intended to prevent the global spread of B.1.1.7 -- to no avail, as would later be determined.
When the UK finally emerged from this horrid pandemic spell in early March, its total count of COVID-19 deaths topped 124,000 -- nearly double the total when the Kent variant was announced.
Only a most incredible British vaccination campaign could truly turn the tide of the pandemic war in their favor.
In the throes of the Kent variant’s assault on the UK, the British vaccine rollout might have seemed like a cup of water splashed onto a raging inferno.
But by the time the UK emerged from its longest, darkest lockdown in March 2021, the success of its vaccination campaign took its rightful place on center stage.
It was a long time coming:
From the beginning of the British search for a COVID-19 vaccine, the UK showed a willingness to be more direct and aggressive than its peers in Europe and abroad.
Its early vaccine approval surprised many in the international scientific community, including those who doubted the authorization process employed by British regulatory agencies and questioned if it was part of a post-Brexit coup.
To its credit, the United Kingdom didn’t waiver.
Its exceptionalism continued through the early phases of the British vaccination rollout when the UK government made a critical decision to delay the period between first and second COVID-19 vaccine doses from 3 to 12 weeks.
The move broke the mold adopted by many in the international community and received significant backlash.
However, despite the controversy it brewed, the decision rooted itself in scientific data and projections.
Guided by evidence suggesting one dose of an approved COVID-19 vaccine offered 70-90% protection for up to 12 weeks, the British government installed the prioritization of first dose administration and the delay of second doses as cornerstones of its pandemic recovery.
In the words of the UK’s Chief Medical Officers, these decisions “[would] protect the greatest number of at risk people overall in the shortest possible time and [would] have the greatest impact on reducing mortality.”
As had the UK’s early vaccine approval, these principles carried inherent risk, but chief British scientists and leaders believed desperate times called for bold but prudent measures.
Thankfully, their risks paid off:
Over the last five months, the United Kingdom became an exemplary model for managing a successful vaccine rollout.
After the NHS administered its first COVID-19 jab on December 8, 2020, it moved systematically moved through “priority groups” organized by factors such as age, underlying health conditions, clinical vulnerability and membership to essential workforces.
In tandem with its first dose prioritization, this strategy allowed the UK to inoculate a substantial number of its citizens in a quick but hyper-regimented fashion.
By mid-February, the United Kingdom administered 15 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to high-risk citizens, with specific targets on those over 70, care home residents, social and health care workers and the extremely clinically vulnerable.
By mid-April, it extended this offering, providing all adults over 50, adults over 16 with underlying health conditions, unpaid care workers and more the opportunity to receive their first jab.
Now, as of May 14, 2021, the United Kingdom has administered over 55 million COVID-19 vaccine doses, with 27.2% of its population fully vaccinated and a further 25.5% partially vaccinated.
The British rate of 80 vaccine doses per 100 people is also among the highest in the world, further emphasizing the UK’s exceptional pandemic recovery.
Since the overwhelming wave of Kent variant cases subsided, the UK has too reached yearly lows in daily cases (<2,000), hospitalizations (<120) and deaths (<50) -- triggering a phased return to normality for Britons.
With schools and universities resuming in-person education, vital businesses opening to customers and the promise of a return to regular life in late June, the mood of the British people is cautiously optimistic.
While the tragic consequences of the pandemic weigh heavily, there’s significant hope the UK will emerge with strength.
