Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has defended his efforts to balance the health and economic impacts of COVID-19.
LONDON — Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave a second day of testimony Thursday at Britain’s public inquiry into the government’s response to the pandemic, giving his own advice on balancing the health and economic impacts of COVID-19. defended the effort.
Mr Johnson said the government’s Eating Out program, which supports the service sector by subsidizing restaurant meals, and a second national lockdown as infection rates began to rise towards the end of 2020 They were angry about the delay in implementation.
Leading scientists testified that they were not involved in discussions about the plan and that it was clear it would increase the risk of infection. Johnson said there’s no reason to question the restaurant’s efforts.
“I have to stress that it was not presented to me at the time as increasing the risk budget,” he said.
Testifying under oath, Mr Johnson admitted on Wednesday that he had made mistakes in assessing the scale of the pandemic and that his advisers had failed to “sound the alarm loud enough” about the virus.
His comments followed weeks of evidence from other ministers, including former health secretary Matt Hancock, who sought to sound the alarm within the government. Mr Hancock claimed thousands of lives could have been saved had the country been put into lockdown weeks earlier than its final day on March 23, 2020.
Britain remains in Europe’s longest and strictest lockdown and has one of the highest coronavirus death tolls on the continent, with the virus recorded as the cause of more than 232,000 deaths.
The inquiry aims to uncover lessons from Covid-19 so authorities can better respond to future pandemics, but the revelations could further damage Mr Johnson’s tarnished reputation. .
Mr Johnson was praised for delivering a landslide victory for the Conservatives in 2019, but faced a series of scandals, including revelations that he held boozy parties at his Downing Street office during the pandemic lockdown. The scandal forced him to resign as prime minister last year.