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Yesterday Prof Mark Woolhouse, a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M), told The Andrew Marr Show that the government’s announcement of pre-departure testing for people arriving in the UK had come too late. “I think that may be a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted,” he said.
This morning Boris Johnson, in an interview on a visit with police in Merseyside, primarily to promote the 10-year drugs strategy, was asked about specifically about this comment. Johnson said he did not accept it. He went on:
I think what we’re doing is responding to the pandemic. We were the first country in the world to take decisive measures to tackle Omicron. We put about 10 countries automatically, immediately, on to the red list and we said that anybody coming from any country in the world would have to quarantine for a couple of days.
We’re now going further and toughening those measures up as we see the spread of Omicron around the world.
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