In the
UK and US, coronavirus has put practices such as anonymous briefings in the spotlight
Covid-19 is a chaotic disease which has upended the world’s health systems, mobility and economy. And yet its patterns have become wearyingly predictable for those in the US and the UK, which seem bound together not just by a “special relationship” but by a worrying inadequacy in government response.
In the face of rising public fear and frustration, even the loyalist press on both sides of the Atlantic are toppling like treacherous dominos, pushed over by the not-so-slight touch of facts and existential threat.The bodies piling up in the makeshift morgues, the families and friends in hospital or worse, the sirens that sound all day and all night, are pieces of physical evidence ignored by only the most debased
Twitter conspiracy theorist. It was startling to see the Daily Telegraph, the house journal of the
Boris Johnson government, deliver the banner headline “Questions without answers” last week as the government fumbled to give any clear responses on the lack of testing and the projections for lockdown.