Coronavirus: UK spends 20,000 deaths, chain controversies

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The UK has now passed the 20,000 mark for coronavirus deaths. According to the latest assessment, 20,319 patients died, or 813 more in 24 hours. A number that is sure to worry the British

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With our correspondent in London, Muriel Delcroix

Government medical advisers had estimated that a final toll of 20,000 coronavirus deaths would be "  a good result  ". Today, the balance of 20,319 patients who died from Covid-19 only includes deaths in hospitals. The British government is more and more criticized for a management of the crisis which lacks transparency.

The government may say that the country has now passed the peak of deaths in hospitals, the population is not reassured, because the number of deaths in retirement homes and hospices is increasing rapidly and could prove to be very difficult to control. In fact, if these deaths were included, the UK would have passed the 20,000 mark a long time ago. And many criticize the government for lacking honesty in the counting of victims, suspecting it of wanting to soften the national toll.

Recurrent lack of transparency

This lack of transparency is also recurrent: the press has indeed revealed that Downing Street had done everything to minimize the seriousness of the Prime Minister's state of health until his emergency hospitalization in intensive care.

The latest controversy is the presence of Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson's advisor , at several meetings of the scientific committee that guides government decisions in the face of the epidemic. For the Labor opposition, the intervention of this very influential and feared adviser calls into question the independence of the committee, even if it forgets to say that its presence on March 23 was the day that the confinement was announced, a decision without any salutary doubt for the country.

But this excitement shows the current lack of confidence in the executive, amplified by a vacuum in power in the absence of Boris Johnson, still recovering. The Prime Minister will resume work on Monday, a spokeswoman for Downing Street announced on Saturday evening.

►Read also : Boris Johnson hospitalized, how is the UK managed? 

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• Coronavirus
• Health and Medicine
• United Kingdom
• Boris Johnson

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