Britain is welcoming the news that Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his fiance Carrie Symonds of the birth of their first child on Wednesday (April 29). Boris Johnson had 6 other children with earlier relationships.
Boris Johnson remains a popular figure among the British public due to his quick-witted and often humorous political comments. Born in New York City, USA in 1964 to British parents, Stanley Johnson and Charlotte Farcet, the Johnson begun his journalism career with The Times newspaper and served as the chief editor of the Spectator magazine from 1999 to 2005 before getting into the British politics. Despite of being with Conservative party Mr. Johnson has leaning towards liberal values such his public support for The LGBT community.
Meanwhile, as number of dead surpassed 20,000 and more. The government failed to conduct 100,000 daily covid-19 tests by end of April as they only managed to 52,429 on Tuesday (April 28) and current maximum testing capacity of 73,000, officials from Downing Street cited. Sources argued the target increased by 10,000 each passing day compared to beginning of April. The failure to reach the target of 100,000 daily test as how through government projected in the beginning magnifies the inadequacies of the testing facilities from the very beginning.
The British government only failed to fulfill its estimated testing targets. The country is on the way to becoming the highest Covid-19 deaths in Europe with more than 26,097 fatalities; 765 more from previous day and 165,221 confirmed cases of infection added on Thursday (April 30).
There are daily reports of front line workers are not well-equipped with adequate personal protective equipment(PPE) hence bearing the risk of contraction among doctors, nurses and elderly care centers.
The risks of contraction of the virus among the front line workers are very real and it is absurd that a first country could not provide its health care professionals with their basic of protection.
The Prime Minister himself had contracted the virus earlier. He got very ill that few of his close advisors were unsure of his full recovery. Johnson managed to recover from after spending few days at thee emergency ward and completed his recovery while remaining at the hospital . During his stay in hospital, his Deputy Minister, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab had cited he was in good spirits, in fact it was far from any such as according to Boris Johnson's own account later. The condition so was precariously macabre.
There is no specific time frame published yet about how and when the exit of lockdown framework will take place. The lockdown had gripped itself on the world's fifth largest economy to standstill. Public pressure is boiling up after weeks of being under home quarantined.
Time will tell if March 12 was truly turning point of Britain's battle against Covid-19 . On March 12, Boris Johnson ditched the containment phase which was an attempt to track down the virus via contact tracing as implied in south Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan with visible success. Instead Mr. Johnson opted for the " delay phase" route to flatten the curve in order to relieve the health care services from overburden. On that day Boris Johnson also told journalists and addressed the British public to be prepared for " many more families are going to lose loved ones" yet he didn't call for the lockdown. The order to lockdown was placed an week after that.
Boris Johnson government is racing against time and an invisible enemy just as most other governments across the globe. The call not to announce nationwide lockdown on March 12 and waiting till further an week later to eventual implementation of the national lockdown. As bodies are piling up across the country, it remains subjective of his leadership skills whether it was too little too late.