People don't really read newspapers any more. In Jan 2020, newspaper circulation was about 10% of the country [0]. In Jan 2021 this is down about 35% (far fewer people commuting or even going to shops to buy a paper -- the Metro lost 60% of its readers)
The left always complain about the power of the Daily Mail - but it reaches fewer than 1 million people a day. How do you explain the other 67 million people in the UK?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_Unit...
Afterwards, those countries did pretty much the same as everyone else and they ramped up vaccinations much faster than other countries, so the later response masks the total incompetence of the initial response.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55379220
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-12-20/covid-19-millions-in-eng...
https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-uk-records-highest-ever-...
How they got away with such incompetence remains utterly baffling and deeply depressing. (A largely Conservative-supporting national press probably helped to some degree.)
The number of COVID deaths speaks volumes about the government's record in tackling the pandemic: more than 127,000 people dead.
Back in March 2020, the medical director of National Health Service England, Stephen Powis, said that if the UK was able to keep deaths below 20,000 then "we will have done very well in this epidemic."