News Analysis A damning report by the UK parliament’s Public Accounts Committee on the Johnson government’s “Test and Trace” flagship scheme, which was introduced after the first lockdown for combating the spread of COVID-19, has just been published. Committee Chairwoman Meg Hillier MP said, “Despite the unimaginable resources thrown at this project [$51 billion], Test and Trace cannot point to a measurable difference to the progress of the pandemic, and the promise on which this huge expense was justified—avoiding another lockdown—has been broken, twice.” This amount equals the entire budget of the UK Department of Transport and is just under the punitive $54 billion figure demanded by the EU for Britain’s post-Brexit trade deal. However, that was to be paid over three years rather than the one year of “Test and Trace.” And this program accounts for just part of the total COVID-19 bill, alongside lost productivity, increased health care …