UK govt criticized for failure to plan for virus outbreak

A United Kingdom Parliament committee has strongly criticized the British government for its "astonishing" failure to plan for the economic impact of a novel disease pandemic.

The Commons Public Accounts Committee said the government needed to "learn lessons" from its response and "ensure it doesn't repeat its mistakes again in the event of a second spike in infections－or another novel disease outbreak".

The economic reaction to COVID-19 was rushed and the impact could be "long-term", the committee said.

The Treasury waited until mid-March before deciding on the economic support programs it would put in place, it added.

Last month, official figures showed that the UK economy shrank more than estimated between January and March, contracting 2.2 percent in the joint-largest fall since 1979.

"We are astonished by the government's failure to consider in advance how it might deal with the economic impacts of a pandemic," it said.

Ahead of a visit to Scotland on Thursday, Britain's prime minister, Boris Johnson, was defiant, saying the response to the pandemic has shown the "sheer might" of the union of the UK.

However, the Scottish National Party, or SNP, said the visit showed Johnson was "in a panic" about rising support for Scottish independence.

The UK government's flagship testing and traceability system is also under scrutiny, with local leaders and public health authorities saying it has failed to reach thousands of people in areas with the highest infection rates in England.

Local leaders are demanding more control over the tracing operation amid concerns that their ability to contain the virus is being put at risk.

Far fewer than 80 percent of close contacts of infected people in the hardest hit areas in England are being reached, according to data obtained by the Guardian newspaper. The 80 percent mark is the level required, say government science advisers, for effective testing and traceability.

Local leaders said their established community connections must be used to hunt down the virus at ground level, and fill gaps in the centralized system.

Kate Hollern, the Labour MP for Blackburn, said the national test-and-trace system had failed.

"People are out there spreading the virus unknowingly due to this government failure. The responsibility and resources for this should have been with local government, who have the local knowledge. It's a complete shambles and we really need to get control of it."

Elsewhere, the European Central Bank's Christine Lagarde has said female leaders are doing a better job of handling the pandemic crisis than men.

In an online interview with The Washington Post, Lagarde, who is the bank's first female president, said the differences in policies and communication were "quite stunning" in countries led by women.

She cited German Chancellor Angela Merkel's science-based approach as an example of how "very honest, transparent" explanations on novel coronavirus data and infection rates helped members of the public appreciate why masks, social distancing and confinement measures were necessary.

"It became very quickly sort of a common lingua franca, common knowledge that people would understand those scientific elements," Lagarde said.

The female leaders of Belgium and New Zealand had also "carried the water of bad news as well as the water of clear explanation and strong recommendations", she added.

In contrast, male populist leaders including United States president, Donald Trump, the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, and the UK's Johnson have faced strong criticism for their efforts to contain outbreaks in their countries.

Lagarde said leadership was about "being both responsible and accountable".

"It's about caring as well … I think the caring dimension is something that (female leaders) managed to express well. And that was considered by viewers and voters probably as authentic."

Meanwhile, the UK government has granted a 500-million-pound ($640 million) loan guarantee to carmaker Ford to support the US company's substantial exports of engines and transmissions from Britain.

The guarantee will also help Ford to increase investment in electrification and protect jobs at its sites in Essex and Dagenham, the UK's Department for International Trade said in a statement.