British scientists defy PM Johnson to speak out on virus failures

LONDON • British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is battling to contain a public split with his own top scientific advisers, after they warned the government must learn from the catalogue of failures it made during the coronavirus crisis.

Standing next to Mr Johnson on live television, chief medical officer Chris Whitty highlighted a "long list" of potentially flawed decisions on the pandemic response that will need to be reviewed. At the much-watched daily news conference on Wednesday, the epidemiologist admitted his greatest regret was Britain's failure to get a testing programme up and running fast enough.

Hours earlier, Professor Neil Ferguson, a specialist who worked on modelling the outbreak in its earlier stages, said that had Britain imposed a lockdown sooner, the death toll could have been halved.

Mr Johnson insisted that it was premature to draw conclusions. He also pushed back on Prof Ferguson's criticism, saying that Britain followed the advice of its Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, of which Prof Ferguson was a member at the time.

"All such judgments will need to be examined in the fullness of time," Mr Johnson said, when pressed on whether he would have done anything differently. "It is simply too early to judge ourselves."

With more than 41,000 coronavirus deaths so far, Britain has the second-highest toll in the world after the United States, and the government has faced a cascade of criticism over its response to the pandemic. The admissions by the scientists are some of the frankest yet by senior figures.

Mr Johnson's ratings have taken a tumble, just six months after winning a big majority at the general election.

The Prime Minister, who contracted the virus and almost died of it, has struggled to manage the deepest crisis of his premiership. His closest adviser, Mr Dominic Cummings, was at the centre of a row over whether he violated lockdown rules, a controversy that cut through to the public and damaged trust in the government.

Meanwhile, with the rest of Europe opening up its borders, Britain is still largely shut down.

The ongoing business closures are now a grave threat to the economy, according to analysts. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development warnedthat the British economy could shrink 11.5 per cent this year. The slump is almost twice as much as what is expected for the global economy, and more severe than the 9.1 per cent estimated for the euro area.

Against this backdrop, Mr Johnson now needs to contain a conflict between scientists and some government ministers that has spilled out in the open. Even as he sought to close down the discussion of what he had got wrong, his medical advisers said learning lessons now will be vital to countering a potential second wave of the virus in the winter.

When asked what he regretted about Britain's efforts, Prof Whitty told journalists: "There is a long list actually, of things that we need to look at very seriously. If I were to choose one, it would prob-ably be looking at how we could speed up testing very early on in the epidemic."

He added that there were many other issues that will need to be re-examined ahead of a possible second wave, but "many of the problems that we had" came from the lack of testing evidence on the outbreak. "We were trying to see our way through the fog," he said.

Mr Johnson is trying to return the country to normality as the number of new deaths from the coronavirus slows.

People are allowed to meet in parks and gardens, as long as they maintain social distancing, and car showrooms and outdoor markets were allowed to reopen on June 1. From Monday, non-essential shops will be allowed to reopen, as well as zoos, safari parks and drive-in cinemas.

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