Coronavirus was widespread in the UK months ago but the "lack of vigilance" by British authorities allowed it to expand at pace, an expert claims.
Dr Kari Stefansson, one of the world's leading human genetics experts, has insisted the bug was widely present in Britain "very, very" early on in the global pandemic.
He said the UK and America failed to do enough from the very beginning. Dr Stefansson is part of an extensive programme in Iceland to genetically sequence every positive case of the killer bug to gain a better understanding of it.
He claims sequencing of genetic material tells them where the cases come from because the virus has a "barcode for every part of the world".