LONDON — On the Thursday before Easter, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was discharged from the intensive care unit after three days there with Covid-19. “Boris is out (now that really is a Good Friday)” cheered The Sun newspaper the next morning. Other outlets lingered on his “good spirits.” The same day, Britain’s death toll from the coronavirus pandemic had soared to some 8,000, with nearly 900 fatalities in the previous 24 hours.

Throughout Easter weekend, gushy details of Mr. Johnson’s get-well messages from his pregnant fiancée and the films he watched in the hospital jangled against the avalanche of misery and grief that rocked the country: lives lost, the trauma and exhaustion of treating the afflicted and the cruelty of people dying alone. Everyone — including his critics — was relieved that Mr. Johnson was out of the danger zone. But thousands were dying across the country, most likely as a consequence of mismanagement under his watch. The dissonance became too much for me.

Of course, many people were rightly concerned about Mr. Johnson’s health: A national leader in critical condition is an unsettling jolt, especially in the midst of an anxiety-drenched pandemic. But in Britain’s news media, the prime minister’s condition seemed to crowd out concern for others, and the exaltations of Mr. Johnson dampened scrutiny of his government’s failures. High among these was the government’s inability to source enough essential protective equipment for National Health Service staff, in part because it missed three opportunities to take part in a European Union bulk-buying scheme.