UK PM accused of 'dilly-dallying' as fresh COVID-19 wave strikes

AFP

The crisis facing Britain this winter is depressingly familiar: stay-at-home orders and empty streets. Hospitals overflowing. A daily toll of many hundreds of coronavirus deaths.

The UK is the epicenter of Europe’s COVID-19 outbreak once more, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government is facing questions and anger, as UK people demand to know how their country has ended up here again.

Many countries are enduring new waves of the virus, but Britain’s is among the worst, and it comes after a horrendous 2020. More than 3 million people in the UK have tested positive for the coronavirus and 81,000 have died — 30,000 in just the last 30 days.

The economy has shrunk by 8 percent, more than 800,000 jobs have been lost and hundreds of thousands more furloughed workers are in limbo.

Even with the new lockdown, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said the situation in the capital was “critical,” with one in every 30 people infected. “The stark reality is that we will run out of beds for patients in the next couple of weeks unless the spread of the virus slows down drastically,” he said.

Medical staff are also at breaking point.

“Whereas before, everyone went into a mode of, ‘We just need to get through this,’ (now) everybody is like, ‘Here we go again — can I get through this?’” said Lindsey Izard, a senior intensive-care nurse at St George’s Hospital in London. “That’s really, really hard for our staff.”

Much of the blame for Britain’s poor performance has been laid at the door of Johnson, who came down with the virus in the spring and ended up in intensive care.

Critics say his government’s slow response was the first in a string of lethal mistakes.

Anthony Costello, professor of global health at University College London, said “dilly-dallying” in March about whether to lock down the UK cost thousands of lives.

Britain was locked down on March 23, and Costello said if the decision had come a week or two sooner, “we would be back down at 30,000 to 40,000 deaths. ... More like Germany.”

“And the problem is, they’ve repeated these delays,” said Costello, a member of Independent SAGE, a group of scientists set up as an alternative to the government’s official Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies.

Most countries have struggled during the pandemic, but Britain had some disadvantages from the start.

Its public health system was frayed after years of spending cuts by austerity-minded Conservative governments. It had only a tiny capacity to test for the coronavirus. And while authorities had planned for a hypothetical pandemic, they assumed it would be a less deadly and less contagious flu-like illness.

The government sought advice from scientists, but critics say its pool of advisers was too narrow. And their recommendations were not always heeded by a prime minister whose laissez-faire instincts make him reluctant to clamp down on the economy and daily life.

Johnson has defended his record, saying it’s easy to find fault when looking back. “The retro-spectroscope is a magnificent instrument,” Johnson said.

“Scientific advisors have said all sorts of different things at different times. They’re by no means unanimous.”

Queen, 94, vaccinated

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and her husband Philip, both in their 90s, have received vaccinations against COVID-19, Buckingham Palace said on Saturday.

“The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh have today received COVID-19 vaccinations,” the palace said in a statement.

The Queen is 94 and Philip is 99, putting them in the priority category in Britain’s coronavirus vaccine rollout.

A royal source said the vaccines were administered by a household doctor at the queen’s Windsor Castle residence, adding that she made the news public to counter any speculation.