Boris Johnson admitted the government could have handled the UK’s coronavirus outbreak differently and there were lessons to be learned, including on the timing of the lockdown. One year on from taking office, the prime minister told BBC News the government had underestimated the extent of asymptomatic transmission and didn’t fully understand the coronavirus in the “first few weeks and months” of the pandemic. It marked a significant departure from his previous insistence that the government took “the right decisions at the right time” based on scientific advice.
A lack of PPE, inadequate testing, and discharging people from hospitals into care homes were the key mistakes made by the UK government in its approach to England, MPs were told. The responses, seen exclusively by the Guardian, were given as part of a major coronavirus inquiry. Older people were “catastrophically let down” and many died before their time, according to the Age UK charity, and the BMA said the government’s testing and tracing capabilities at the start of the crisis fell “far short” of what was needed and left the infection to “spread unchecked”. The Unite union doctors group said the government had been slow and had “squandered” weeks of valuable time. The Office for National Statistics estimates that 27,700 people had coronavirus in England last week, suggesting cases have either remained stable over recent weeks or have potentially started to rise. In the latest report, published on Friday, the number of new infections in the week of 13 to 19 July were estimated at 2,800 per day, compared with 1,700 per day the week before. Separately, the government published its latest estimates of the R number, which reflects the number of people each infected person passes the virus on to. In England, R stands at 0.8 to 1, meaning the pandemic is stable and potentially in decline. Growth rates published alongside the latest R values suggest infections are falling by 1% to 4% per day. The UK government’s tally of Covid-associated deaths rose by 123 to 45,677. That’s it from me from the UK side. Thank you for reading along and to everybody who got in touch throughout the day. If you would like to continue following the Guardian’s coronavirus coverage, head over to the global live blog for the worldwide picture.