Books: Blinded by Corona. How the Pandemic Ruined Britain’s Health and Wealth and What to do About it

The respected public health physician John Ashton places the government, its advisors, and Public Health England (PHE) squarely in his sights in this devastating, at times polemical, analysis of the early months of the COVID-19 crisis in Britain. After a brief survey of pandemics through history he considers changes to the structure of public health in Britain since 1974, reserving his major criticism for the effects of austerity in 2008 and Andrew Lansley’s 2012 NHS reforms, which he asserts emasculated local public health services and prioritised central control from PHE.

Ashton examines the origins of the novel coronavirus in China, the early Lancet paper that alerted the world to its seriousness, the tragic story of whistleblower Li Wenliang, and the disease’s progression to Britain. He recounts sounding the alarm bell on 1 February shortly after WHO declared a ‘public health emergency of international concern’, and describes the initially secretive …