And the media shrugs

Yesterday, the BBC's political editor pubished a report based on off the recored briefings she had received regarding COVID, and it seems that the Prime MInister and the decisions he made, caused the deaths of thousands, if not tens of thousands of people.

It tells of a leader, frozen with indecision, time and time again opting to go for party unity rather than the good of public health.

On 31 January, it was reported that coronavirus had arrived in the UK, as two people were admitted to hospital. Meanwhile, more than 80 Britons evacuated from China were quarantined at a facility in the north-west of England. But for the government, Brexit had sucked up all the political energy - it was the day the country officially left the EU.

The prime minister and his team were exhausted but elated. It felt like Boris Johnson had "just really started to take flight", one member of the team tells me.

Ministers and officials had already been meeting to discuss the virus in China - but it felt thousands of miles away. There was a "lack of concern and energy," one source tells me. "The general view was it is just hysteria. It was just like a flu."

The prime minister was even heard to say: "The best thing would be to ignore it." And he repeatedly warned, several sources tell me, that an overreaction could do more harm than good.

Every bit as bad as feared.

"The biggest moment for me was when I saw those pictures of northern Italy," one senior minister says. "I thought that will be us if we don't move."

Same as how I felt and why I wrote posts extrapolating figures on hospitalisations and infections.

Before the first major coronavirus briefing on 3 March, he had, I am told, been prepared by aides to say, if asked by journalists, people should stop shaking hands with each other - as per government scientific advice.

But he said the exact opposite. "I've shaken hands with everybody," he said, about visiting a hospital with Covid patients.

And it was not just a slip, one of those present at the briefing says. It demonstrated "the whole conflict for him - and his lack of understanding of the severity of what was coming".

A Downing Street spokesperson told the BBC: "The prime minister was very clear at the time he was taking a number of precautionary steps, including frequently washing his hands. Once the social distancing advice changed, the prime minister's approach changed."

But one senior politician who attended at the same time says: "The early meetings with the prime minister were dreadful." And inside Downing Street, senior staff's concerns about the government's ability to cope grew.

I can only imagne how dreadful.

"There was a genuine argument in government, which everyone has subsequently denied," one senior figure tells me, about whether there should be a hard lockdown or a plan to protect only the most vulnerable, and even encourage what was described to me at that time as "some degree of herd immunity".

There was even talk of "chicken pox parties", where healthy people might be encouraged to gather to spread the disease. And while that was not considered a policy proposal, real consideration was given to whether suppressing Covid entirely could be counter productive.

People in Government would have been quite happy to see many more tens of thousands die.

But on 12 March, with journalists crammed into the state dining room at No 10, he told the public that the country was facing its worst health crisis in a generation. Anyone with symptoms was told to stay at home for a week.

Advisers seemed confident it was not yet time to close schools or stop large crowds gathering. And the government's scientists felt they had time to slow everything down - the peak was not expected for another 10-14 weeks.

That same week, though, nervousness was rising among others in government that the virus was outpacing everyone's expectations, and the plans in place to smooth out the outbreak would not work.

One source tells me it felt like the "government machine was breaking in our hands", things were "imploding", and within 48 hours the approach outlined on the 12th would feel out of date.

There has been no shortage of controversy over whether the government was too slow to close the doors on 23 March - but many of the conversations I have had, pinpoint the moment it became urgent in No 10.

On 13 March, the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) committee concluded the virus was spreading faster than thought.

To prevent the NHS "falling over", he was warned, the government would have to impose measures as infections rose. And while they could be relaxed as cases fell, this pattern might recur across "multiple waves for 18 months".

Several sources recall vividly the "snake like graph" they were shown that day.

Then, one official says, everything started to move at "lightning speed". And behind closed doors - before the terrifying projections of Imperial College became public, a couple of days later - plans were accelerated.

On 16 March, the public were told to stop all unnecessary social contact and to work at home if possible.

But those I spoke to now agree on one thing - how much they did not know about the disease.

"You can kick yourself about the things that you wish you knew," one minister says, "but we just didn't have anything in place."

Another cabinet minister says: "It's easy to say we should have locked down longer, gone harder, but there are more complex debates about where the national interests really lie."

And it was all so strange.

One minister who made some of the public announcements when lockdown came says: "I remember when I wrote it into the script, I just couldn't believe that I was saying this."