2 Years of COVID-19 on GOV.UK

28 Jul 2022 10:31 AM

Blog posted by: Anna Sherrington - Lead Delivery Manager for GOV.UK, Government Digital Service, 25 July 2022 – Categories: GOV.UK, People and skills, Ways of working.

The last 2 years have been tough for us all. During this period, we’re proud that the Government Digital Service (GDS) had teams working on the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The size of our multidisciplinary teams changed throughout the pandemic to respond to circumstances, policies, and user needs. As an organisation, we aim to maintain an agile approach to ensuring that we quickly adapt to the needs of the day. At this point there is no longer a dedicated coronavirus (COVID-19) team for GOV.UK, and new information is handled by our wider teams as needed.

This blog is slightly different from our usual blogs and it’s a bit of a longer read - we have so much to share. In this post we will cover the timeline of events and what GDS delivered, and talk about how we got through this challenging time. We’ll also share the big numbers the team successfully achieved.

How we worked

Before the pandemic

At the start of 2020, news reports of a new virus emerged from Wuhan, China. On 24 January 2020, we published the first coronavirus guidance page on GOV.UK.

A screenshot of the "Coronavirus: latest information and advice" guidance page. It contains information for the public on the outbreak of coronavirus in China, including the current situation in the UK and information about the virus and its symptoms, and was published on 24 January 2020, and last updated on 7 February 2020 at the time of the screenshot.

A few weeks later, the UK recorded its first case of coronavirus. The World Health Organisation declared the novel coronavirus outbreak as a global pandemic on 11 March 2020.

GDS drew from its existing staff to form a team to respond to the rapidly developing situation, working tirelessly behind the scenes. On 20 March 2020 we launched the first bespoke coronavirus landing page at gov.uk/coronavirus.

The first bespoke coronavirus landing page.

Click here for the full blog post