Leading scientist claims Government failed to prepare for coronavirus outbreak

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A leading scientist claimed the UK Government failed to initiate mass testing at the start of the coronavirus outbreak
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A leading infectious disease scientist said the Government will face a reckoning over its failure to "test, trace, and isolate" cases of the coronavirus at the start of the outbreak in the UK.

Professor Helen Ward tweeted: "It's very sad that so many people have died, and so many more are desperately ill because politicians refused to listen to advice.

"We said lockdown earlier, we said test, trace, isolate.

"They decided they knew better. There will be a reckoning, and it will not be forgiving."

Her comments come after a number of politicians and scientists criticised the Government's approach to tackling the coronavirus outbreak.

Professor Ward, of Imperial College London's Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, told the Mirror the decision in early March to stop community testing and contact tracing was a "big problem" which meant we "lost sight" of the pandemic.

She said it was clear ten days before the Government instituted the lockdown on March 23 that the country needed "stringent social distancing".

"We have a series of local epidemics," said Professor Ward. "London is a much larger outbreak than Newcastle or Scotland. It's hard to say where it will end.

"There are worrying signs that we are continuing to grow to the point where the number of deaths will be very high and similar at least to Italy and Spain."

Speaking about why the spread of Covid-19 was worse in the UK than countries like Germany, she added: "There was a lack of testing, lack of PPE, lack of ventilators and the lack of hospital beds and NHS capacity, a result of 10-year cuts."

As of 9am yesterday, 290,720 people have been tested for the coronavirus in the UK since the outbreak began.

This is the equivalent of around 436 people in every 100,000, or 0.4 per cent of the population.

On average just under 11,700 new people were tested daily in the seven days up to April 13 while in the previous seven days, up to April 6, the daily average was just under 10,600.

Speaking at Monday's Downing Street press conference, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the latest data showed the UK was "starting to win this struggle" three weeks after lockdown restricts were imposed.

He praised the public for staying at home over the Easter weekend, adding: “Our plan is working. Please stick with it, and we’ll get through this crisis together.”

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