You have to bear in mind that the UK press was pushing the narrative that non-decentralized tracing was boneheaded British exceptionalism that ignored what every other country was doing even back when Germany, France, and various other countries were still basing their apps on that exact same solution. Because they had a narrative they wanted to push, that narrative was that the UK was a stupid backwards country that needed to copy the enlightened Europeans but was refusing to because it was run by Brexit-supporting idiots, and they weren't going to let contradictory details get in the way of that.
> They just took the turn sooner than the British and others.
Because of protests and massive intervention of experts and digital citizens rights group like the CCC.
Luckily, the government listened in this case. I am somewhat amazed how well different sectors of society can suddenly work together when the situation is serious.
tbf, everyone went for their own custom solution initially since apple/google only really announced their plans for a joined effort some time early/mid April or so
The decision to centralize the data collection was not due to a lack of a privacy-preserving API. Any country could have gone this route independent of Apple and Google.
I think there are times when the go it alone and keep calm carry on attitude works well, but this is not one of them. Hopefully lessons will be learned.