mushroom, regarding Covid ALL public health services faced the unknown to the same degree (and substantially still do), the NHS was in that respect no worse placed than any other national health service. Mind you, the reactions by other authorities were inexcusably inept in too many of those countries where the first onslaught lagged by weeks behind the early countries. Too many countries (UK included) seemed to think, ah, the Italians can't do anything right, so sat and did nothing expecting "Us" to cope splendidly......and then the proverbial hit the fan (Oops).
Incidentally, one form of praise of the NHS to cover all the failures is often held up: But it's all free. No it isn't, huge amounts of tax money goes into it - and anyway, is it better to get a poor standard of health service and from it that type of treatment (World's Best) without a personal bill to pay or is better to know that the service you go to is statistically/literally the best in achieving a good access/outcome/value for money (yes, for everyone's tax) ? When it matters I would rather have faith in the truth than the myth as to "best", even if I have to pay a bill.
Incidentally, in all the countries I know about, those who genuinely cannot afford to pay for medical care do get medical care for free, even in the USA. It's just that the service available to you on that basis is not at the very best hospitals, etc. That actually also applies in the UK with public versus private healthcare.