JOHNSON APOLOGIZES FOR ERRORS IN PANDEMIC RESPONSE

Regretful but unruffled, Boris Johnson acknowledged Wednesday that as Britain’s prime minister during the pandemic, he had underestimated the emerging threat of the coronavirus in early 2020. But he rejected suggestions that his government’s initially sluggish response had driven up Britain’s death toll.

Speaking before an official inquiry into the government’s handling of the crisis, Johnson apologized for “the pain and suffering and the loss” of those who died from COVID and of their families. He said the families deserved answers, as he submitted to two days of grilling about his leadership and judgment during those frantic days.

“There are clearly things that we could have done, and should have done, if we’d known and understood how this was spreading,” Johnson said.

Johnson, whose time in office was defined and ultimately derailed by the pandemic, was the most eagerly anticipated witness so far in the inquiry, an independent, public examination of Britain’s response to COVID-19, led by a former judge, Heather Hallett, that is expected to continue until 2026.

His daylong testimony mixed references to epidemiological data with detours into the locker-room language used by Johnson and his aides. Though there were no startling revelations, it added up to a revealing glimpse into how Britain’s leaders groped for a remedy to a once-in-acentury health crisis.

Johnson generally kept his cool during the first day, showing only a flash of irritation as Keith pressed him about whether he had taken his eye off the ball in February 2020 when he retreated to Chevening, an official residence outside London, and failed to lead several government meetings about the crisis.

When asked about the decisions for which he was apologizing, Johnson singled out difficulties in coordinating England’s public health messages with authorities in Scotland and Wales, then said that he did not want to prejudge the conclusions that would unfold from his evidence.

“Inevitably, we got some things wrong,” Johnson said, while insisting that he and his aides had been doing their best at the time.

But asked whether he had read any more than a small fraction of the available minutes from the deliberations of the government’s key committee of outside advisers, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, or SAGE, Johnson admitted that he had not, saying he had consulted them “once or twice.”