Why did the UK have such a bad Covid-19 epidemic?
More or Less
BBC
4.6 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 1 July 2020
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The UK has suffered one of the worst outbreaks of coronavirus anywhere in the world. We’ve been tracking and analysing the numbers for the last 14 weeks, and in the last programme of this More or Less series, we look back through the events of March 2020 to ask why things went so wrong - was it bad decision-making, bad advice, or bad luck?
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts |
| 0:05.8 | Hello and welcome to More or Less, your weekly guide to the numbers all around us. |
| 0:10.5 | I'm Tim Halford. |
| 0:12.5 | This has been a long series. |
| 0:14.9 | 14 weeks ago on the 25th of March, we broadcast what in retrospect was the absurdly titled |
| 0:21.3 | coronavirus special. |
| 0:23.3 | Did we really think we'd be one and done with a virus and would be talking about the |
| 0:26.9 | nutritional value of tomatoes for the rest of the season? |
| 0:30.5 | No, the entire series has been wall to wall-roaner, but we thought it was worth taking a step |
| 0:35.8 | back for this final episode. |
| 0:38.9 | The official death toll for the UK stands at more than 43,000. |
| 0:44.2 | An alternative and probably more accurate measure, excess deaths, stands at more than 65,000. |
| 0:51.2 | This is one of the deadliest outbreaks anywhere in the world, whether in absolute terms, |
| 0:56.9 | or relative to the size of the population. |
| 0:59.8 | It's a national tragedy. |
| 1:01.9 | And so we're asking one big question. |
| 1:05.1 | Why has the UK had such a bad epidemic? |
| 1:09.0 | And looking back, it seems most of the answers can be found back when we started this series |
| 1:14.0 | in March. |
| 1:15.6 | So we're going to walk you through the decisions that were made in March. |
| 1:18.7 | For data we had at the time and what we now know in hindsight, we'll be looking back |
| 1:22.9 | over the series and trying to put together the pieces of the puzzle that we were only |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.