From our evidence this appears to have led to a policy approach of fatalism about the prospects for covid in the community: seeking to manage, but not suppress, infection. This amounted in practice to accepting that herd immunity by infection was the inevitable outcome, given that the United Kingdom had no firm prospect of a vaccine, limited testing capacity and there was a widespread view that the public would not accept a lockdown for a significant period.105 That said, an initial unwillingness to consider seriously and act on the approach being taken in Taiwan, Singapore or Korea was a serious error. But even without an effective test and trace system earlier, social distancing and locking down would have bought much-needed time: time for vaccine research to bear fruit; time for treatments to be developed that could mean that experiencing covid-19 was less serious; time for test and trace systems to be developed and made effective so that the prevalence of the disease could be lowered without the entire population being restricted. The loss of 102 US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, ‘glossary’, accessed 17 September 2021 103 10 Downing Street YouTube Channel, ‘UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds a press conference on coronavirus: 12 March 2020’, timestamp 10:43, accessed 17 August 2021 104 The Telegraph, We must do everything in our power to protect lives, Matt Hancock, 14 March 2020 105 See paragraphs 108–111 34 Coronavirus: lessons learned to date that time was to prove fatal to many. It would, however, be an overstatement to say that the Government and its advisers were promoting the acquisition of covid-19 to accelerate herd immunity in the population. But, in early Spring 2020, given that no alternative strategy was being implemented, that was the effective consequence. It was principally the threat of the NHS being overwhelmed that forced—belatedly—a change in direction.