Health Expert: Britain Responded Too Slowly to Virus Outbreak

A public health professor said Friday the British government responded too slowly to the COVID-19 outbreak, and the nation could see as many as 40,000 deaths before the pandemic is over.Speaking remotely, University College London Global Health Professor Anthony Costello told a parliamentary committee the government needs to identify the “system errors” that slowed Britain’s response.Britain imposed a lockdown on business and daily life March 23, about a week after other European countries, and Thursday announced a three-week extension on those measures.Costello told the committee he expects a second wave of the virus to hit the country and urged the government to have a system in place to rapidly test people in the community and get the results back quickly.Costello did say that an Oxford University researcher is 80 percent certain she could have a vaccine to treat the virus as early as September.As of Thursday, Britain reported 13,729 people had died from the virus.
 
 
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