NHS’s Model ‘Holding It Back’ – Politician on UK Response to Coronavirus Pandemic

UK British Prime Minister Boris Johnson spent the night in intensive care in a London hospital after his condition resulting from the coronavirus infection worsened. Johnson was initially diagnosed with the virus 11 days ago. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab will act as deputy for Johnson and hold the Westminster daily briefings until further notice.

Adam Brown, the leader of the UK Libertarian Party gave his views on the matter.

Sputnik: Did the UK’s NHS adequately plan and prepare for a potential pandemic?

Adam Brown: Every country in the world is clearly dealing with the situation in the best way that they can, however, given that on two previous occasions the NHS have had a report saying that they are not in a fit state to deal with a global pandemic, we at the Libertarian Party believe that not enough has been done.

We also believe that on a very fundamental basis that the NHS’s model itself is holding it back, and there are places where they have much more regional healthcare, and clearly it’s much easier for them to respond to these kinds of crises.

Sputnik: Would it have been wiser for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to hand over prime ministerial duties during the beginning of self-isolation period?

Adam Brown: Boris Johnson has been doing what most people have been doing these days, and been trying to manage things from home; I don’t necessarily think that he should have handed over responsibly.

He has, however, had quite a cavalier attitude, saying to the press that he’s been going out and shaking hands with people, which may have obviously backfired, but hopefully he will recover.

Sputnik: When do you think that the UK will be able to lift its coronavirus lockdown?

Adam Brown: None of us understand when this peak, as they call it, is going to be. For me, it appears that we have gone against the scientific advice that Boris Johnson said in the first place, which was that we shouldn’t go into lockdown too early, and that we should wait for the peak.

Now we’ve gone into lockdown early; and as he correctly predicted, everybody is getting a bit fed up with the lockdown, and we haven’t even made it to the peak yet, so I’m hoping that the peak will be in the next couple of weeks, but it’s just a case of let’s wait and see.

I believe that the economic effects of this lockdown will be with us a lot longer than the effects of the virus itself. We are seeing massive amounts of people being furloughed, so not quite losing their jobs, but that might depend on the health of those companies when they are back up and running and it’s yet to be seen.

A government shutdown on the economy has never been done before, so nobody knows what the full effects are going to be, but it could potentially affect us for more years than the 2008 financial crisis.