This opinion piece is a reflection on the UK government’s policy response to the war against the COVID-19 pandemic. In the initial stages, concerns were raised with respect to a lack of effective personal protective equipment, availability of ventilators and diagnostic tests. The early defective strategy based on the flawed assumption of building herd immunity in the population was quickly replaced with isolation and social distancing. Subsequently, testing and contact tracing were adopted which too has been criticised for being ‘too little, too late’. With the possibility of the second wave, the concern is the extent to which the United Kingdom has learnt lessons from the first wave and is in a position to effectively respond to the second wave of COVID-19.