IT HAS, inevitably, become a national pastime in near-lockdown to criticise the UK government’s response to Covid.  

It’s as effortless to do as reaching for the last of the Christmas chocolates or scrolling through Instagram instead of sorting out your finances / cupboards / job applications. 

Few would swap places with health secretary Matt Hancock at the moment; it must be tricky. If you close schools, there are howls from working parents but if you leave them open, there are wails from the teaching unions. 

And yet … it is difficult to avoid concluding that the dismal ‘tracking system’, utterly unreliable NHS Covid app and laughable inconsistencies in lockdown add up to a farcical fandango of a fiasco. And other words beginning with an F. 

There are three genuine questions I have relating to the Government’s management of this pandemic. And I can’t find the answers to them.

QUESTION ONE: Track and trace – why can’t we do this, even with a track and trace system? 

Other countries have pinpointed exactly where outbreaks occur but we stare at graphs of 50,000+ daily cases with apparently no idea where transmission hotspots might be. 

Non-essential shops are closed across much of the country – so presumably it’s not them. Pubs and restaurants are also shut in most places – so it’s not them. Supermarkets are open but with no requirement to scan in – so it could be them. Schools have been and still are open – so it could also be them.  

Also Christmas happened, pretty much in whatever way we felt like, thanks to fuzzy last-minute signalling from the Government – vague ‘guidance’ that we should be careful and perhaps not meet too many people for too long, maybe, if you don’t mind, thanks awfully.  

So the current vertical lines on graphs of positive cases appear to be related to that traditionally British annual fuggy fest of marinading in Baileys and bread sauce just ten days ago. 

Singapore, in contrast, said last week it had five new cases, four of which were imported. They have 35 patients in hospital, none in intensive care.  

Yes, I know the population of Singapore at 5.9 million is less than one tenth the UK.  

But if the population of the UK was 10,000, one has a pit-of-the-stomach feeling that hundreds would still be in hospital with Covid and the Government would still have no idea where they caught it. 

QUESTION TWO: Why can you buy giant marshmallows but not a new saucepan?

Garden centres are still open in Tier Four, when almost everything, except essential food shops and other key services, are closed. Why? Since when have houseplants and cut-price velour Christmas elves been crucial to human existence? Attractive, possibly. Fun, yes. But essential? 

Or is this just a Government plot to incubate the disease in as many over-70s as possible (the general mid-week demographic of garden centre visitors) to head off a further adult social care crisis in another ten years? 

Seriously – what is essential about most items sold in a garden centre outside of the main vegetable planting season? 

The government website says among the shops that can open are “garden centres, agricultural supplies shops, and natural Christmas tree retailers. This does not include florists or nurseries”.

Even more hilariously / depressingly, my local garden centre has fenced off the stuff which is arguably essential – saucepans and kitchen equipment – while arranging plentiful scented candles and ceramic piggy banks for purchase. 

• In answer to the question in the heading: you can buy the elves but not the pans. Obviously.

QUESTION THREE: Why is the NHS Covid-19 app telling me complete twaddle?

Why did the NHS Covid-19 app tell me my test was negative WHEN I HAVE NEVER TAKEN A TEST, FOR GOD’S SAKE? Sorry to shout, but I’m furious – and I cannot get any answers. 

The week before that I had also received an alert to isolate for seven days, which I duly did because I’m a good citizen and believe it’s important to do as you are told in the middle of a plague. 

But I’m also wondering how accurate that was too. 

Quick reminder: Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the House of Commons on 20 May that a “world-beating app”, able to track 10,000 new cases a day, would be in place by 1 June.

When I asked the Department of Health and Social Care why this had happened to me (via their online form), I was told they were not going to answer because they had a lot of correspondence and would only answer “the most sensitive and urgent cases”. 

Well, actually I’m feeling pretty damn sensitive that they have entirely the wrong information about me and are pushing nonsense onto my mobile phone from their IT system. 

Several people have told me they refuse to put this app on their phone and others have said they deliberately put the wrong phone number down when asked to check in somewhere.  

Perhaps this kind of ‘community spirit’ coupled with Government inconsistency goes some way to explaining why this country is in quite such a deep Covid trench.

Happy new year!