What the government should be held responsible for is the massive lack of preparedness for a pandemic. I used to work at WHO, but not as an epidemiologist, though I knew a few. We ran constant campaigns to remind countries that a pandemic could happen at any time. The science was clear, viruses were mutating and crossing from animal to human hosts. We'd had the scare from SARS, in particular, but there were others. The world just escaped massive problems with SARS but it showed what could easily happen.
In the UK about 3 or 4 years ago, the NHS ran a major exercise to test their preparedness. (I can't remember the name of the exercise, but could find it.) The results were shocking, highlighting PPE shortages, organizational issues and so on. This, of course,is why such exercises are run. What did the government of the day (Tory) do about it? Well, we have seen this year what they did about it.
They crossed their fingers and hoped that the possible pandemic wouldn't happen. The countries that prepared well, such as Germany, clearly didn't just cross their fingers but got off their backsides and did something in order to be ready should the worst happen.