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Re:Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK by thu2111 on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @11:43AM (#25278179)
Just Google it, it's not hard. One of the first few results for [nhs using only public labs for pcr tests april] is this:

https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-four-issues-that-hav...

"Part of the reason the UK has had difficulty in meeting the 100,000 tests daily goal was because of its focus on centralised testing centres. In contrast to the robust and wide-reaching testing programmes in Germany and South Korea, the UK government initially decided to centralise all of its laboratory testing in a few large hubs"

And yes of course there's corruption and incompetence in government - in procurement as well as everything else. The fact that governments routinely fail to even write proper contracts to buy things should give pause for thought when considering how well they'd handle running the entire operation.

Re:Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK by pjc50 on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @12:44PM (#25278975)
> the UK government initially decided

So, not an NHS decision but a political decision by the relevant cabinet minister? That changes the answer. It's important to distinguish between decisions made by "the NHS" (to the extent that this isn't just individual trusts, or NICE, or whatever) and political decisions made by the government which are ideological.

Re:Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK by thu2111 on Thursday December 03, 2020 @04:31AM (#25287204)
The decision was made by Public Health England. But the NHS is the government, regardless of how it's branded or how it arranges itself internally.