BRITAIN DIDN’T UNDERSTAND THE VIRUS IN 1ST WEEKS: BORIS

nLONDON: After over 45,600 deaths and nearly 300,000 cases in the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday night admitted that the government did not understand the new coronavirus in the first few weeks and months, adding that things could have been done differently.

The UK has registered the worst death toll in Europe and one of the highest in the world, with questions swirling over the government’s handling of the situation: from initial ideas about “herd immunity”, a late lockdown (on March 23), and a trackand-trace system.

Johnson, who himself had suffered from Covid-19 and had a tough time recovering from it, told the BBC in an interview to mark the first anniversary of his spell at Downing Street that “we didn’t understand (the virus) in the way that we would have liked in the first few weeks and months (of the pandemic)”.

He said there were “very open questions” about whether the lockdown had started too late, adding that there were lessons to be learned and that ministers could have done some things “differently”. He has promised an independent inquiry into the handling of the crisis.

He said “the single thing that we didn’t see at the beginning” was the extent to which the virus could be transmitted asymptomatically between people.

Johnson said, “Maybe there were things we could have done differently, as I’ve said, and of course, there will be time to understand what exactly we could have done or done differently. But what I think the public wants us to do now is to focus on getting the preparations ready for what, as I say, could be a resurgence of the virus this winter.”

The number of new deaths and cases have fallen in recent weeks, prompting the government to ease some of the curbs.