DM Monitoring
London: A British minister has flatly denied a report that Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would rather bodies piled “high in their thousands” than order a third social and economic lockdown to stem coronavirus infections.
The local newspaper cited unidentified sources as saying that, in October, shortly after agreeing to a second lockdown, Johnson told a meeting in Downing Street: “No more, lockdowns, let the bodies pile high in their thousands.” Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told Sky News on Monday: “It’s not true it’s been categorically denied by practically everyone,” and added that Johnson was focused on the COVID response.
“We’re getting into the sort of comedy chapter now of these gossip stories. You know, unnamed sources by unnamed advisers talking about unnamed events. You know – look – none of this is serious,” Wallace said. Johnson is facing a stream of allegations in newspapers about everything from his muddled initial handling of the COVID-19 crisis to questions over who financed the redecoration of his official apartment.
The United Kingdom has the world’s fifth-worst official COVID-19 death toll, with 127,681 deaths, after the United States, Brazil, Mexico and India, according to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Johnson did impose a third lockdown in January, though critics say it could have been avoided had he yielded to pressure from senior ministers to make the second lockdown more stringent.
The prime minister’s opponents say he acted too slowly to stop the spread of the virus and then bungled both the strategy and the execution of the government’s response, often delaying imposing lockdowns at crucial moments.
