UK Government’s Senior Advisers Face Calls to Resign over Coronavirus Testing ‘Incompetence’

By Staff, Agencies

The United Kingdom’s deputy chief medical officer was heavily criticized for defending the government’s failure to boost coronavirus testing – with some independent experts calling for the medical team advising Downing Street to consider resigning.

Although Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his ministers have absorbed most of the attacks for the sluggish increase in testing, Dr. Jenny Harries was denounced for claiming a larger number of tests would not necessarily have reduced the UK’s death toll.

Asked about Germany’s superior rates of testing and lower death rates, the senior adviser said a “causal link” was not yet established. She added: “I think the actual mechanism between the two is still not clear.”

Anthony Costello, professor of global health at University College London, suggested both chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty and his deputy should step down if they did not see “links” between testing and death rates.

The former World Health Organization director tweeted: “Deputy CMO Jenny Harries still believes that testing policy in the UK has been correct. And she doesn’t understand links between tests and Covid-19 death rates. Is this CMO policy? If so, they should resign.”

Dr. Rupert Beale, head of the cell biology of infection lab at the Francis Crick Institute, added: “Agree completely. Next level incompetence bordering on malice. Time for wholesale resignations and a reordering of the so far pathetic UK response.”

The British government maintains a target of having 100,000 Covid-19 tests each day by the end of April. The latest daily figures shows just 21,626 tests were carried out on Saturday.