The economy came above the health of the nation up until and including the Cheltenham Festival back in March.
Back then the UK death tally was 144 and there were c 3500 fatalities in Italy. We had over 200,000 cases worldwide and were approaching 10,000 deaths globally. We were still cheek to cheek at the races. Regardless of all the novel virus stuff we knew that things were bloody serious well before then.