Shortages of PPE set to continue and testing behind schedule after Gove admits Johnson missed key Cobra meetings
Boris Johnson’s government has come under pressure to defend its handling of the coronavirus pandemic after Michael Gove was forced to admit that the prime minister had missed five key emergency meetings when the crisis first hit.
With ministers warning that shortages of protective medical gear could continue, test rates remaining stubbornly low and the hospital death toll rising on Sunday to 16,060, some Conservative MPs have expressed private concern that Downing Street does not have a strong grip on the crisis.
Johnson’s role in the decision-making over crucial weeks before the UK-wide lockdown now risks becoming a symbol of that perceived inattention, with Labour saying the prime minister appeared to have been “missing in action” at the time.
His de facto deputy, Gove, sent out on a broadcast round, initially refused to comment on a report in the Sunday Times – which also claims that 279,000 of the UK’s shrinking PPE stockpile was sent to China – saying Johnson had missed five meetings of the government’s Cobra emergency committee in late January and February while he was taking a break at a government country retreat.