It's like when smallpox was brought to the New World... the NHS's internal IT, existing in isolation, hasn't developed immunity to pathogens which are common elsewhere (i.e. they stopped installing Windows security updates).
There may be certain mission-critical, non-internet-connected machines for which it's still safer not to install updates, but for the average doctor's workstation it will probably become the norm to install Windows patches.
Where I live, doctors have more freedom in how they run their clinics and IT. That probably causes its own problems, but at least they're free to run a modern version of their OS and keep it patched. This kind of virus wouldn't affect us the same way since there's no top-down tech policy which prevents individual doctors from following good security practices; in fact, if you just follow all the recommended settings when installing Windows/macOS, you'll end up with automated patching by default.
So if you really want an epidemiological analogy, maybe the best one is a monoclonal, monoculture crop (e.g. the Gros Michel banana) being decimated by a pathogen which has just evolved the ability to infect it: take down one banana, and you take them all. Take down one English doctor's computer...
There may be certain mission-critical, non-internet-connected machines for which it's still safer not to install updates, but for the average doctor's workstation it will probably become the norm to install Windows patches.
Where I live, doctors have more freedom in how they run their clinics and IT. That probably causes its own problems, but at least they're free to run a modern version of their OS and keep it patched. This kind of virus wouldn't affect us the same way since there's no top-down tech policy which prevents individual doctors from following good security practices; in fact, if you just follow all the recommended settings when installing Windows/macOS, you'll end up with automated patching by default.
So if you really want an epidemiological analogy, maybe the best one is a monoclonal, monoculture crop (e.g. the Gros Michel banana) being decimated by a pathogen which has just evolved the ability to infect it: take down one banana, and you take them all. Take down one English doctor's computer...