Not only does the UK have the highest number of COVID-19 deaths in Europe (& second highest in the world) but we also clocked up those deaths faster than any other country.

Our coronavirus fire caught later, but burnt brighter and hotter. That translates into missed opportunity.

We could have damped that fire right down while it was still only smouldering. After all, we had the example of all the other countries riding their own pandemic curves ahead of us to draw on. But we're talking about the Tories, who don't do forrin. So we sang Happy Birthday...

And here's a rolling 3-day average of daily confirmed COVID-19 deaths.

Again, we're hugely above other countries.

And yet, our death toll steepened much later than in Italy or Spain, so again we had the perfect opportunity to learn and act. But no, we shook hands with everyone.

We left lockdown measures too late. Here's the UK visually falling behind the rest of the world.

(Maps, L-R: March 14, March 17 and March 23 - lockdown day)

Coronavirus cases were doubling every 3 days back then. So every 3 extra days delay made the problem twice as disastrous.

By March 13, most of the world required public events to be cancelled. (A few countries only recommended it.) The UK did nothing.