Former UK PM Boris Johnson says his govt underestimated COVID-19 threat – Al Jazeera English

Boris Johnson has acknowledged his government got some things wrong in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has acknowledged his government got some things wrong in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as he gave evidence at a public inquiry into his handling of the global health crisis.

In the first of two days in the witness box on Wednesday, Johnson apologised for the pain and the loss and the suffering caused to the families of the victims.

Testifying under oath, Johnson acknowledged that we underestimated the scale and the pace of the challenge when reports of a new virus began to emerge from China in early 2020.

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The former prime minister has faced a barrage of criticism from former aides for alleged indecisiveness and a lack of scientific understanding during the pandemic.

Johnson forced from office last year over lockdown-breaching parties held in Downing Street during the pandemic accepted that mistakes had unquestionably been made but repeatedly insisted he and officials did their level best.

I understand the feeling of the victims and their families and Im deeply sorry for the pain and the loss and the suffering to those victims and their families, he said.

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Johnson, 59, was briefly interrupted as a protester was ordered from the inquiry room after refusing to sit down during the apology.

Several others were also later removed.

Inevitably we got some things wrong, Johnson continued, adding he took personal responsibility for all the decisions made.

At the time I felt we were doing our best in very difficult circumstances.

Ex-Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the inquiry last week that he had tried to raise the alarm inside the government, saying thousands of lives could have been saved by putting the country under lockdown a few weeks earlier than the eventual date of March 23, 2020.

Britain went on to have one of Europes longest and strictest lockdowns, as well as one of the continents highest COVID-19 death tolls, with the coronavirus recorded as a cause of death for more than 232,000 people.

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Grilled by inquiry lawyer Hugo Keith, Johnson acknowledged that he did not attend any of the governments five crisis meetings on the new virus in February 2020, and only once or twice looked at meeting minutes from the governments scientific advisory group. He said he relied on distilled advice from his science and medicine advisers.

Johnsons understanding of specialist advice was doubted last month by his former chief scientific officer, Patrick Vallance, who said he was frequently bamboozled by data.

The ex-leader has also denied claims he said he would rather let the bodies pile high than impose another lockdown.

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His former top aide Dominic Cummings and communications chief Lee Cain both criticised their ex-boss when they gave evidence at the inquiry.

Cummings, who has faced his own criticism for writing expletive-filled WhatsApp messages, said Johnson circulated a video to his scientific advisers of a guy blowing a special hairdryer up his nose to kill Covid.

Cain said COVID-19 was the wrong crisis for his ex-bosss skillset, adding that he became exhausted by his alleged indecision in dealing with the crisis.

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Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who was Johnsons finance minister during the pandemic, is due to be questioned at the inquiry in the coming weeks.

Johnson arrived around three hours early for the proceedings, with some suggesting he was eager to avoid relatives of the COVID-19 bereaved, who gathered outside later in the morning.

Johnson whose lengthy written submission to the inquiry will be published later on Wednesday insisted the overwhelming priority of his government had been protecting the National Health Service (NHS) and saving lives.

Rebutting evidence that Britain fared worse than its European neighbours, he argued every country struggled with a new pandemic while noting the UK had an extremely elderly population and is one of the continents most densely populated countries.

Johnson, who was treated in intensive care for COVID-19 early on in the pandemic, has reportedly spent weeks with his lawyers, reviewing thousands of pages of evidence ahead of his testimony.

His grilling began with questions about a failure to provide about 5,000 WhatsApp messages on his phone from late January 2020 to June 2020.

I dont know the exact reason, he claimed, adding the app had somehow automatically erased its chat history from that period.

Asked if he had initiated a so-called factory reset, Johnson said: I dont remember any such thing.

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Former UK PM Boris Johnson says his govt underestimated COVID-19 threat - Al Jazeera English