DONALD TRUMP has said the UK would have encountered “catastrophic” results had it stuck with its previous plan to tackle coronavirus.
One of his experts voices her concern over Britain’s lack of ventilators. Initially, the UK government did not close schools and ban mass gatherings as other European countries were doing, but it quickly followed their steps as it faced predictions of over 250,000 deaths.
The US President said of the UK that they “put themselves in a little bit of a problem”.
On US measures to fight the disease, Mr Trump said: “A lot of people were saying: ‘Let’s just ride it out’.
“This is not to be ridden out because then you would have been looking at potentially 2.2 million people [dying in the US] or more… in a relatively short period of time.
“If you remember, they were looking at that concept – I guess it’s a concept if you don’t mind death, a lot of death – but they were looking at that in the UK, remember.
“All of sudden they went hard the other way because they started seeing things that weren’t good. They put themselves in a little bit of a problem.”
Mr Trump added: “They have a name for it, but we won’t even go by the name – it would have been very catastrophic I think if that would have happened.”
Before the introduction of stricter measures, the government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, told Sky News that the majority (60 percent) of the UK’s population had to contract the disease so that society could have “herd immunity” from future outbreaks.
Upon learning that Prime Minister Boris Johnson had become infected with coronavirus, Mr Trump said that he is sure Mr Johnson is “going to be great”.
The prime minister continues to self-isolate in Downing Street.
Ruring the briefing, Dr Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, mentioned the relatively low number of ventilators the UK had compared to the US.
She said: “We are worried about groups all around the globe. I don’t know if you heard the report this morning, there are 8,000 ventilators in the UK.
