Yahoo News Coronavirus: UK facing highest death rates in Europe and was too slow acting on COVID-19, says ex-WHO chief
The UK is facing the highest coronavirus death rate in Europe and the government was “too slow” to act to tackle the epidemic, a former WHO director has told MPs.
Professor Anthony Costello said that the UK was facing “probably the highest death rates in Europe”, and that the “harsh reality” is that the response was too slow.
He has predicted that there will be 40,000 deaths in the UK by the end of the first wave of the virus. So far the UK has recorded more than 13,000 deaths from COVID-19.
Giving evidence to parliament’s health and social care committee, Professor Costello said the UK is facing further waves of the virus.
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He said: “If we’re going to suppress the chain of transmission of this virus in the next stage we all hope that the national lockdown and social distancing will bring about a large suppression of the epidemic so far – but we’re going to face further waves.
“And so we need to make sure that we have a system in place that cannot just do a certain number of tests in the laboratory, but has a system at district and community level.”
He warned in a previous interview that there could be up to ten waves before herd immunity – the point at which enough people have had the virus and gained immunity to stop it spreading – would be achieved.
Professor Costello has been an outspoken critic of the government’s approach to the coronavirus pandemic, condemning the failure to carry out mass community testing.
He has advocated contact tracing and quarantining like that which has been carried out in South Korea, where people who have come into contact with someone with coronavirus are alerted and put in quarantine.
On Friday he suggested offering incentives to some parts of the population to stay socially isolated in order to get the economy going again.
He said: “We have to get the economy going and if it means locking down 10% of our population, even giving them incentives to stay in quarantine and with digital apps to help monitor their symptoms and give them support, that’s the way to really keep this going until we get a vaccine and safe herd immunity.”
