A leading pandemic expert Sir Jeremy Farrar has said that the UK failed to react quickly enough to the Coronavirus epidemic and could now be faced with the worst death rate in Europe.
Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show Professor Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of Wellcome Trust & pandemic expert member of SAGE, admitted :
“The UK is likely to be one of the worst, if not the worst, affected country in Europe.”
He added that Germany doing so well because of testing, making it clear that testing is the way through this crisis, along with an effective vaccine and said that there could be a possible vaccine by autumn but then manufacturing issues might prevent it being rolled out universally across the country
He said continuing testing in the community would “buy you time” to deal with the crisis, giving an additional six to eight weeks to ensure health systems were up to capacity.
“Undoubtedly there are lessons to learn from that,” he added
Meanwhile on the same programme the business Secretary Alok Sharma refused to say whether the UK is headed towards having the highest death rate in Europe despite being asked three times by the interviewer.
