The UK imposed its coronavirus lockdown too late in a decision that "cost a lot of lives", a top scientific advisor to the government said today.
Prof John Edmunds, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), said the issue was his main regret in the handling of the crisis.
And he begged Boris Johnson not to ease the lockdown before Covid-19 is better under control - with more than 40,000 dead in the UK, including hundreds of new deaths per day. "It’s definitely not all over," he told the BBC. "There’s an awful long way to go and if we relax then this epidemic will come back very fast.
We do need to be really cautious.” Prof Edmunds said "poor" data back in March made it hard to "pull the trigger.. but I wish we had,