Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson 'underestimated' Covid threat

Boris Johnson has admitted his government "underestimated" the threat posed by the Covid-19 virus in the early days of the pandemic, as he apologised to the victims at the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.

The former prime minister said that at the start of 2020 coronavirus "wasn't really escalated to me as an issue of national concern" as the data emerging from China was misunderstood.

Challenged over the slow response to the unfolding crisis, he said ministers should have "twigged" about the need for action much sooner, adding that it was only when he saw the "horrors" of the outbreak in Italy in February that year that he realised the seriousness.

Mr Johnson suggested the experience of previous diseases such as Sars, Mers and swine flu clouded officials' judgment, while a coronavirus pandemic was "outside our living experience".

He added:

"When you read that an Asiatic pandemic is about to sweep the world, you think you've heard it before. And that was the problem.

"But I think it'd be fair to say that the scientific community within Whitehall at that stage was not telling us that - I was not being informed that - this was something that was going to require urgent and immediate action."

The ex-premier said his government did not fully believe some of the early forecasts that were being made about Covid-19 and were unable "to comprehend the implications".

"If we had collectively stopped to think about the mathematical implications of some of the forecasts that were being made, and we believed them, we might have operated differently," he told Baroness Heather Hallett's probe.

"The problem was that I don't think we attached enough credence to those forecasts, and because of the experience that we'd had with other zoonotic diseases, I think collectively in Whitehall there was not a sufficient loud enough klaxon of alarm."

He also said:

"It would certainly be fair to say of me, the entire Whitehall establishment, scientific community included, our advisers included, that we underestimated the scale and the pace of the challenge."

Mr Johnson denied taking a "long" holiday in February 2020, after coming under fire for taking a half-term break when the virus had exploded in Italy and there were cases in the UK.

He insisted he was "working throughout the period" after it previously emerged there was a 10-day period in which no notes on coronavirus were sent to Mr Johnson nor emergency Cobra meetings held.

Mr Johnson's highly anticipated appearance was hit by protests as he began by issuing an apology to victims of the pandemic.

Four people were removed from the hearing room after they held up signs reading: "The Dead can't hear your apologies."

"Can I just say how glad I am to be at this inquiry and how sorry I am for the pain and the loss and the suffering of the Covid victims," Mr Johnson said.

He went on to acknowledge that his government made "mistakes" and takes "personal responsibility for all the decisions that we made".

Among those decisions were the speed of the government's response to the pandemic in 2020, the lockdown decisions and their timeliness, the explosion of the virus in the residential care sector, the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, and the decision not to introduce a circuit-breaker later in 2020.

Mr Johnson said:

"With hindsight, it may be easy to see things that we could have done differently or it may be possible to see things that we could have done differently.

"At the time, I felt and I know that everybody else felt that we were doing our best in very difficult circumstances to protect life and protect the NHS."

He claimed he was "not sure" whether government decision-making had led to "materially" a larger number of excess deaths as a result of the pandemic.

Pressed repeatedly on why the UK had such a high rate of excess deaths - the second-worst in Europe after Italy - he cited "headwinds" including an "extremely elderly population" with many health issues and being a "very densely populated country", which "did not help".

The former prime minister admitted he may have only read Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) minutes "once or twice", adding that, in retrospect, "it may have been valuable" to have done so.

Mr Johnson defended keeping former health secretary Matt Hancock in his post, despite calls from his aide Dominic Cummings that he should have been sacked.

He said Mr Hancock "may have had defects" but "I thought that he was doing his best in very difficult circumstances and I thought he was a good communicator".

Mr Johnson was also grilled on what previous witnesses to the inquiry have described as a toxic atmosphere in Downing Street and the influence of Mr Cummings, his chief adviser at the time.

He said expletive-heavy and sharply critical WhatsApp messages exchanged between senior aides were from "very frazzled" people involved in tackling the pandemic and "reflected the agony" of the country.

Mr Johnson said his No 10 team was made up of "a lot of highly talented, highly motivated people" who, "under great stress and great anxiety about themselves and their own performance, will be inclined to be critical of others".

While denying suggestions of a toxic culture, the former prime minister admitted his top team was too "male-dominated" and the gender balance "should have been better".

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