Boris Johnson has suggested that Britain will spend decades dealing with the aftermath of the Covid pandemic. Speaking at a Downing Street press conference a year to the day after he announced the first national lockdown, he said he expected the country to be dealing with the fallout from the pandemic for the rest of his life. He is 56. (See 5.56pm.) Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, also said the deprivation triggered by the lockdown could have a “massive impact” on people’s health going into the long term. He said: Much of what’s happened in lockdown has the risk of making people who are on the borderlines of deprivation in more difficult economic and other circumstances and we all know that has a massive impact on long-term health implications. Johnson appeared to rule out using retaliatory action against the EU in the event of it blocking vaccine exports to the UK. Hinting that his recent contacts with EU leaders suggested Brussels might back away from such a proposal, he said: We’re all fighting the same pandemic across the whole of the European continent and indeed much of the world. Vaccines are an international operation, they’re produced by collaboration between great national scientists, it’s a fantastic thing to see how they’ve been developed and will continue to work with European partners to deliver the vaccine rollout. All I can say is we in this country don’t believe in blockades of any kind, of vaccines or vaccine material, [it’s] not something this country would dream of engaging in and I’m encouraged by some of the things I’ve heard from the continent in the same sense. He also refused to deny reports saying the UK and the EU might share AstraZeneca supplies from a Dutch plant. Whitty said the UK death toll in the second wave would have been a lot lower if it had not been for the emergence of the new variant. The discovery of the so-called Kent variant, or B117, was first announced in December, and it is now the dominant variant in Britain because it is more transmissible than the original one it replaced. Whitty said: The height of the [second] peak would undoubtedly have been a lot lower if that new, much more transmissible and probably more fatal - but that is more questionable, but the transmissibility I don’t think is questionable - had that not arrived, I think the pattern of the second wave in the UK would’ve been very different. Johnson said the government would say more about possible foreign travel rules over the summer by 5 April. He said: A lot of people do want to know about what’s going to happen on the holiday front and I know there’s a great deal of curiosity and interest. All I can say is it’s just too early to say and my advice is to everybody to wait for the global travel task force to report. We’ve heard already that there are other European countries where the disease is now rising so things certainly look difficult for the time being but we will be able to say more we hope in a few days’ time, I certainly hope to say more by 5 April. Previously the government said it would announce the outcome of its review of travel restrictions on 12 April. Johnson refused to admit that he should have ordered the original lockdown earlier. He has been criticised for delaying all three lockdowns, particularly the second, which came weeks after the government’s scientific advisers told him he should order an autumn circuit-breaker lockdown. But when asked if the lockdown should have started earlier, he did not claim to have made the right decision either. Instead he just said he acted from the best motives. He said: These are very hard decisions and there are no good outcomes either way. All these consequences are very tough for people and all I can say is we took all the decisions with the interest of the British people foremost in our hearts and in an effort to protect the public and prevent death and suffering. Though doubtless there will be a moment to properly review, to learn lessons for future pandemics of a kind which I’m sure there will be. Johnson refused to say why Britain has had one of the worst records for deaths, saying it was too early to be making international comparisons. But Whitty was more candid. He said he agreed that people should be cautious about making international comparisons now. But he went on: The general point is we had a bad outcome. Many other countries had a bad outcome. Johnson’s argument was slightly vindicated by an ONS report published last week which showed that, while last summer England had the worst record for cumulative excess deaths out of 26 European countries, by December it was only the seventh worst for total excess deaths because it had been overtaken by other countries.
Nicola Sturgeon has said she would have resigned had she been found to have broken the ministerial code, but said she would not be “bullied” out of her position as she defeated an attempt to oust her. Care home operators have warned that mandatory Covid vaccinations for staff could worsen workforce shortages and threaten standards of care. The EU is expected to take into account the level of vaccination coverage in a country and its record in facilitating exports to the bloc when deciding on whether to prohibit individual vaccine shipments to the UK and elsewhere. There are no plans to put all European countries on the travel “red list” as a third wave of cases grows in countries such as Germany, France and Italy, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, has said. Politicians in Liverpool are braced for government commissioners to intervene in the city council in an unprecedented move following allegations of corruption. That’s all from me for today. But our coverage continues on our global coronavirus live blog. It’s here.