Regarding his government’s political actions during the pandemic, he said on the first day of the two-day hearing: “We inevitably did some things wrong,” but added: “We did our best.” He takes responsibility for the decisions made.
The Times newspaper reported that Johnson wanted to emphasize at the hearing that his decisions ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives. His government has achieved its main goal: by making “the right decisions at the right time” it has prevented the state health system in Great Britain from being overwhelmed.
Looking at his behavior during the pandemic, Johnson will argue, according to the Times, that he had “a basic trust that things would turn out well” – and trusted the “misguided logic” that previous health emergencies were less catastrophic than feared would have ended.
More than 232,000 people have died in Great Britain due to the disease Covid-19 caused by the coronavirus. This made the country one of the hardest hit countries in the world in relation to the total population. By mid-July 2021 alone, 130,000 people had died of Covid-19 in Great Britain.
The current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who was then Finance Minister, will also be questioned this year in the investigation into the state’s handling of the pandemic.
Johnson caused massive outrage with parties at his official residence during the Corona lockdown. He resigned from office in the summer of 2022. Sunak had previously resigned from Johnson’s cabinet – and played an important role in his subsequent resignation.
Public inquiries in the UK, such as the one into the coronavirus pandemic, are funded by the government but chaired independently. They investigate matters of public interest and are tasked with establishing the facts, determining the reasons for what happened and drawing lessons from them.
However, the investigative committees are not allowed to negotiate the civil or criminal liability of those involved; their recommendations are not legally binding.
Johnson arrived about three hours early for his questioning on Wednesday. Some observers saw this as an attempt to avoid a possible encounter with bereaved relatives of Covid-19 victims who gathered outside the interview site.
In the questioning, which is scheduled to continue on Thursday, Johnson will also have to answer for the fact that Great Britain only ordered a nationwide lockdown on March 23, 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic. Britain took this step much later than other European countries – and, according to several former ministers and scientific advisers, too late.
Johnson is likely to argue that he was opposed to extensive restrictions on public life, both personally and politically. Before Johnson’s statement, numerous companions at the time spoke extremely critically about Johnson’s handling of the pandemic before the Corona committee.
His top adviser at the time, Dominic Cummings, explained that in March 2020, Johnson asked England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, and the government’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, for their assessment of a YouTube video showing a man with a “special hairdryer”. blew his nose “to kill Covid”.
Cummings spoke of a “low point”. Vallance himself told the panel that Johnson was often “confused” by new data.
