Britain was initially too slow to respond to the novel coronavirus outbreak and did not learn quickly enough from other countries, opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer said on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson initially refrained from approving the stringent controls that other European leaders imposed but then closed down the country when projections showed a quarter of a million people could die in the United Kingdom.
So far, more than 12,000 people with COVID-19 have died in British hospitals, though new official data indicates the true death toll could be much larger.
“I think that some of the decisions made in the last few weeks were too slow and didn’t learn quickly enough from other countries, let’s not repeat that,” Starmer told BBC Radio.
Starmer, a 57-year-old former prosecutor who won the leadership of the Labour Party earlier this month, is calling on the British government to publish its exit strategy from lockdown restrictions.
Governments around the world are grappling with how to reverse measures put in place to contain the outbreak and which are battering the global economy. Several European countries have announced plans or already begun to relax restrictions.
