‘Fatal failure’: How the world’s media covered the UK’s botched response to coronavirus

Press coverage has focused on UK policy failures

From test and trace to dragging its feet on lockdown, the British government’s failures during the coronavirus crisis have not gone unnoticed by the world’s media.

With the UK still under tight restrictions well after many other countries have lifted theirs and the death toll still mounting, questions are being asked abroad about how the UK ended up with so many casualties.

German broadcaster ZDF describes the UK’s response as a “fatal failure”, summarising: “The only thing that is constant: the prime minister’s boasting of sentences like: ‘We will have the world’s best tracing system’ or ‘I am proud of what we have achieved’ or ‘We lead the world in our response on Corona’.”

Its correspondent notes that “even conservative observers” have been unable to whitewash the last few months.

Another German publication, Die Welt, explains to its readers how far behind the UK’s recovery is: “Only recently prime minister Boris Johnson lifted the strict contact restrictions”, it says, noting that “in Germany this has been the case since the beginning of May”.

Over in the United States, itself hit hard by the virus, The New York Times tells its readers that “England’s ‘world beating’ system to track the virus is anything but”. Explaining the government’s failures, it says: “As with much of the government’s response to the pandemic ... the results have fallen short of the promises, jeopardising the reopening of Britain’s hobbled economy and risking a second wave of death in one of the countries most debilitated by the virus.”

The CNN network asked: “Where did it go wrong for the UK on coronavirus?” Meanwhile an op-ed in The Washington Post written at the start of the pandemic in March is simply headlined: “The British government’s response to the coronavirus has been a disaster”. It argues that the British strategy was “flawed” and that the government was only belatedly realising it had made a mistake.

In Australia, The Age newspaper was asking as early as May: “Where did Britain go wrong?” with a headline to an in-depth piece describing the UK response as “the biggest failure in a generation”. The New Zealand Herald meanwhile describes scenes of crowded beaches in the UK, encouraged by Boris Johnson this week, in Britain as “unbelievable”.

Describing the disconnect between Boris Johnson and his scientific advisors, French newspaper Liberation says Britain may be too unprepared to end its lockdown. Its coverage of a press conference by Boris Johnson reports that “The contrast between his joviality and the grey faces of the scientific advisers standing by his side was striking.”

Japan’s Asahi Shumbun newspaper this month reported the UK’s high death toll by explaining to its readers: “The UK was late in imposing a lockdown, with limited action compared to European countries where the spread of infection spreads earlier.”

Italy’s Repubblica meanwhile asked whether the Dominic Cummings scandal will have an effect on compliance with the test and trace system. “How will citizens behave now after the scandal of Dominic Cummings, Boris’s ‘Rasputin’?” its correspondent asks, noting that the prime minister “has defended him strenuously” despite breaking lockdown rules. “The risk of ‘anarchist’ behaviour is increasingly widespread,” it notes.