University of Liverpool, UK.
University of Oxford, UK.
Soc Sci Med. 2020 Dec;266:113423. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113423. Epub 2020 Oct 7.
The UK government response to COVID-19 has been heavily criticised. We report witnesses' perceptions of what has shaped UK policies and how these policies have been received by healthcare workers. Such studies are usually affected by hindsight. Here we deploy a novel prospective approach to capture real-time information. We are historians, social scientists and biomedical researchers who study how societies cope with infectious disease. In February 2020 we began regular semi-structured calls with prominent members of policy communities, and health care professionals, to elicit their roles in, and reactions to, the pandemic response. We report witnesses' perceptions that personal protective equipment (PPE) stocks were too small, early warnings have not led to sufficiently rapid policy decisions, and a lack of transparency is sapping public trust. Significant successes include research mobilisation. The early experiences and reactions of our witnesses suggest important issues for investigation, notably a perception of delay in decision making.
英国政府对 COVID-19 的应对措施受到了严厉批评。我们报告了证人对哪些因素塑造了英国政策以及医护人员对这些政策的看法。此类研究通常受到后见之明的影响。在这里，我们采用了一种新颖的前瞻性方法来获取实时信息。我们是研究社会如何应对传染病的历史学家、社会科学家和生物医学研究人员。2020 年 2 月，我们开始定期与政策界和医疗保健专业人员进行半结构化电话会议，以了解他们在大流行应对中的作用以及他们的反应。我们报告了证人的看法，即个人防护设备 (PPE) 的库存太少，早期预警并没有导致政策决策足够迅速，缺乏透明度正在削弱公众信任。重大成功包括研究动员。我们的证人的早期经验和反应表明存在需要调查的重要问题，尤其是对决策延迟的看法。
