Jonathan. I would agree that Johnson's Oxford Union debating skill means that he presents the scripts prepared for him well. It's useful having the medical officers backing him up but they're obviously covering for a seriously under resourced NHS (both staff and money) when they hedge around things like the lack of testing and the measures to address that. Without the metrics from rigorous, consistent testing metrics the NHS is in the dark. I'm not sure how viable it is to swap car factories to manufacture ventilators in these days of specialist manufacturing and what is in most cases plants assembling parts made abroad, plus it would appear we have limited experience in their design as all are made abroad at present (if the news reports are correct). It's obviously possible given time and money but it's not like 1939 when heavy engineering companies made a range of less complex goods and subcontracted locally so swapping the item produced was more straightforward. Still, Johnson does better than Trump's semi-coherent monologues that say how good his administration is doing while people entering the US queue up at airport arrivals, no doubt passing on the disease. However, if one looks at the paper Richard posted under my Flattening the Curve topic the reaction from the EU, UK and aspects the US is probably too little, too late. I found this amusing, although in a way it isn't ...
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/norway-students-us-collective-infrastructure_n_5e6ec485c5b6dda30fcbba2a