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- “Why we didn’t respond so much sooner once this epidemic broke out in China, I just don’t know,” said Sir David, who advised the UK government between 2000 and 2007.
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- Reuters
- The UK’s slow response to the coronavirus pandemic cost lives, according to the country’s former chief scientific adviser.
- “Why we didn’t respond so much sooner once this epidemic broke out in China, I just don’t know,” Professor Sir David King told LBC Radio.
- He said a decade of cuts from the UK government to public services had exacerbated the crisis.
- The UK government denies acting too slow to block the country.
- Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.
The failure of the UK government to act “much earlier” to deal with the coronavirus pandemic caused a significantly higher number of deaths in the country, according to the country’s former chief scientific adviser.
Professor Sir David King told LBC Radio on Wednesday that he said the Boris Johnson government should have acted as soon as the outbreak in China started.
“Why we didn’t respond so much sooner once this epidemic broke out in China, I just don’t know,” said Sir David, who advised the UK government between 2000 and 2007.
“And I say this because, in 2006, we published a report on the necessary actions to face a pandemic and in that report, we showed that if an outbreak of any new virus of this type occurred, anywhere in the world, within three months, due to air travel, it would be everywhere in the world and that, of course, is what happened, and it seems that we were not prepared and did not take action. “
King pointed to images of crowds attending Cheltenham horse racing in mid-March, despite the virus spreading rapidly across the country.
“Imagine, on March 16, a horse race with a massive crowd in Cheltenham,” he said.
“We didn’t make it until too late and the everyday delay has caused more deaths in the UK.”
King said government cuts to public services in the past decade had exacerbated the slow response to the crisis.
“I think it really is very difficult because it dates back to 2010, when the government came in with a very clear policy to reduce general public spending, including the National Health Service, and I am afraid that these austerity measures led to the reduction of risk management programs, “he said.
“And clearly this also managed to cause flooding problems across the UK. We were much better prepared for better spending for the Environment Agency on that, and we weren’t prepared for pandemics anyway. For me, this is very annoying because we had established this preparation process, as I say, in 2006 ”.
When asked if the cuts had directly caused more deaths in the UK, he replied: “Absolutely. That is what I am saying.”
The UK government has denied acting too late to address the crisis compared to other countries with lower death rates.
When asked by Business Insider on Monday whether the government’s response had cost lives, the First Secretary of State, Dominic Raab, replied that “I don’t think those comparisons are comparable because of where we are on the curve … and individual circumstances.” . in those countries, but we will continue to monitor what is happening in those countries. “
