You're right we shouldn't automatically attribute negative motivations to those driving policy, but, it's hard not to when you consider prior form, that many policies seem to defy logic in order to garner popularity and maintain the hysteria.

I have no doubt COVID hospitalisations are increasing, it's winter, COVID is still with us and we are intent on slowing the spread ineffectively thus guaranteeing more variants as we cannot reach herd immunity. I can't remember the last time the NHS wasn't (correctly) claiming being overwhelmed in winter. Additionally, the vaccine wont eradicate COVID if we can't deploy it en masse in a short space of time. The economic damage and lockdown impact will soon make COVID look like a walk in the park. Many ruthless politicians and businesses are exploiting COVID to the detriment of us all.
Just noticed this and had a quick look. To me the salient point was not so much the issue of private sector backup but the fact that there is a genuine problem for the authorities in the rapidly increasing number of Covid hospitalisations in London. Which leaves me as a non-expert somewhat confused, having for some months imbibed much seemingly trustworthy input about a false positive pseudo epidemic. That's not of course to say that lockdowns are anything other than counterproductive. But we should perhaps pause before automatically attributing negative motivations to those driving policy. Maybe they're the victims of groupthink in a genuinely perplexing emergency type situation. Just speculating.

And for a fraction of the cost of Track, Trace and testing they could have recruited tons of temps and retired nurses at premium rates and launched crash courses for volunteer emergency help. Just needed a bit of imagination and thinking outside the box.
They aren't capable of thinking inside the box. They are too busy running around bouncing off the walls inside the bloody box! 🙄 🙄 🙄