During March 3 briefing when BJ was 'still shaking hands' the upbeat tone stood in sharp contrast with the growing unease of many of the govt’s scientific advisers behind the scenes. (Reuters investigation) https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-path-speci/special-report-johnson-listened-to-his-scientists-about-coronavirus-but-they-were-slow-to-sound-the-alarm-idUSKBN21P1VF?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=Social

'Minutes of technical committees reviewed by Reuters indicate that almost no attention was paid to preparing a programme of mass testing. Other minutes and interviews show Britain was following closely a well-laid plan to fight a flu pandemic - not this deadlier disease'

'some experts here say, the lesson from the British experience may be that governments and scientists worldwide must increase the transparency of their planning so that their thinking and assumptions are open to challenge.'

'For many years, the Cabinet Office - a collection of officials who act as the PM’s direct arm to run the government - took the threat of pandemics seriously. Presciently, it rated pandemics as the Number 1 threat to the country, ahead of terrorism and financial crashes.'

'According to one senior Conservative Party politician, who was officially briefed as the crisis unfolded, the close involvement in the response to the coronavirus of the same scientific advisers and civil servants who drew up the flu plan may have created a “cognitive bias.”

“We had in our minds that it was a nasty flu &needed to be treated as such. The implication was it was a disease that couldn't be stopped & was ultimately not that deadly” While UK was prepared to fight flu, Asian states built their pandemic plans with lessons learned from SARS

On the eve of Jan31, Boris Johnson sat before a fireplace in Downing Street & told the nation, in a televised address: “This is the moment when the dawn breaks and the curtain goes up on a new act in our great national drama.”

He was talking of finally delivering Brexit

and even as late as Feb 13th Whitty stated in a BBC interview that a UK outbreak was still an “if, not a when"
Loads more at the link - too much to thread.