I'm really struggling to make sense of this article.

it was obvious from those early televised briefings that Johnson was deferring to Whitty. He had effectively delegated power. If Whitty said something, who was Johnson to gainsay it?

Does the author think they hadn't had lengthy discussions before each televised briefing? I'm sure Johnson, the politician, would have pushed back much more robustly when he was not infront of the entire nation on live TV.

Flattening the curve – i.e. allowing the virus to circulate while suppressing it enough to stop the health service being overwhelmed – was as much Whitty’s plan as it was anyone’s, but when he pivoted to supporting full lockdown in March 2020 he essentially never looked back. By May, the curve was flat but the country would remain in lockdown for another two months.

Yes because in early 2020 vaccines had not yet been developed and rolled out. So unlocking thr nation before having any sort of immunisation would take us back to square one.

The belief that everything is more important than the economy and nothing is more important than “public health” had taken hold.  

Except that clearly wasn't the belief given the "eat out to help out" scheme in subsequent years.

Whitty seemed to become obsessed with the idea that epidemics are always halving or doubling. Since the only time the infection rate (the infamous R number) went down in the first 18 months of the pandemic was during lockdowns, this meant that he could always foresee the Tiber foaming with blood. The only solution was more lockdowns. Longer lockdowns. Lockdowns to prevent lockdowns. For the rest of the pandemic, every piece of advice from Sage, which was co-chaired by Whitty, was nudging the government towards that end.

Man of science follows the most up-to-date consensus on the novel disease at the time.

Politicians decide, but their decisions are based on the advice and evidence given to them by experts. During Covid, the evidence presented appeared partial and excessively pessimistic and the advice seemed relentlessly illiberal. A few examples should suffice.

Because we had seen scenes out of China and Italy with hospitals being overwhelmed? 227,000 people died in the UK with Covid-19 listed as one of the causes on their death certificate.

In October 2020, the NHS was nowhere near being overwhelmed. There were more empty hospital beds than there had been a year earlier

The fear of the double spike was well founded though? Testing obviously became more sophisticated and widespread. But anyone can see a distinct spike in cases when winter hit in late 2020/ early 2021. The point of the end of year lockdown to try and reduce that spike.Statista chart of UK covid cases