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Boris Johnson will return to work earlier in the week as pressure builds on the UK government over its handling of the coronavirus crisis that has claimed more than 20,000 lives.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told Sky News that Johnson would return to his Downing Street office on Monday after recovering from the virus and that he was “in a good mood” and “eager to leave.”
Johnson has been recovering at the retirement of British Prime Minister Checkers outside London since his discharge from the hospital on April 12.
He spent three days in intensive care, then admitted that “things could have gone either way.”
Raab on Sunday resisted growing calls for the government to relax strict social distancing rules and said they “would be with us for some time.”
He told the BBC: “We want to see when it is safe, when it is responsible, how to allow more external activities to take place, but, again, we have to have the evidence that it is a safe step and not allow the coronavirus to control the country. “
Johnson ordered the country closed on March 23. It was extended on April 16 and should be revised on May 7.
On Sunday, new Labor leader Keir Starmer wrote to the prime minister asking for details on any possible lifting of the restrictions.
He accused the government of making “mistakes” at the beginning of the crisis and added: “The government cannot fall short in its preparations for what happens when the time is right for the closure measures to be lifted.”
The prime minister’s return to work comes after health department figures released on Saturday showed that 813 other people had died at the hospital after contracting COVID-19, bringing the official number of deaths to 20,319.
Raab described reaching the bleak landmark as “heartbreaking.”
Earlier in the crisis, senior health officials said keeping the death toll below 20,000 would be “a good result” for the UK.
The latest figures confirm that Britain has been one of the most affected countries in the world and that the actual number could be much higher when deaths in the community are taken into account, especially in nursing homes.
The increase in fatalities has highlighted the government’s focus during the crisis and has led to questions about the shortage of personal protective equipment and the lack of widespread evidence, particularly of frontline health and social care workers .
Meanwhile, there was an ongoing dispute over the role played by Johnson’s controversial chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, after it emerged, attended meetings of the leading scientific group that advises ministers on the coronavirus pandemic.
Downing Street denied that Cummings and another adviser, Ben Warner, were members of what is supposed to be the Politically Independent Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), but said they attended to “better understand” the scientific discussions on this emergency. ” .
The government has not released the names of those sitting in SAGE and Raab said: “We did not disclose in a practical way the names of all SAGE members due to the risk that they are subject to pressure, undue influence.”
A former conservative frontbencher, David Davis, tweeted: “We should publish SAGE membership: eliminate non-scientific members.”
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