The NHS test-and-trace failings that contributed to UK’s 2020 Covid Christmas

Britain's then health secretary Matt Hancock hosts a remote press conference from Downing Street to update the nation on the coronavirus pandemic on 10 December 2020. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images

As Britain approached its first Christmas with Covid, Matt Hancock was typically tiggerish, even as a worrying new variant bubbled up in Kent.

“The finish line is in sight,” the health secretary told the nation from the Downing Street lectern on 10 December 2020. “And I know that, together, we can get there.”