A Cheap Shot?

The UK government repeatedly claims it wants the country to become a "scientific superpower". It has, however, a distinctly odd way of facilitating any climb to this desired status. It's now ceasing its funding for the widely-admired UK Recovery programme (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/03/uk-government-halts-cash-covid-recovery-programme). The UK Recovery ('Randomised Evaluation of Covid-19 Therapy) programme had a powerful global impact in the early stages of the response to the Covid-19 pandemic. It used the power of the UK's National Health Service, to rapidly evaluate claimed actions of widely-available and cheap drugs on folk carrying the new viral infection. Recovery was able to show that some compounds (like the anti-arthritic steroid, dexamethasone) clearly benefited Covid-infected patients, whereas others (like the over-hyped malarial treatment hydroxychloroquine) were totally ineffective. This enabled medics to offer effective treatments, whilst vaccines were being worked on. It actually saved thousands of lives. Cutting funding to 'success stories' like the UK Recovery programme, will a) Do nothing to boost the country's likelihood of becoming a "scientific superpower" and b) Leave folk in a worse place, when the next pandemic comes along.