BORIS JOHNSON was unaware of lockdowns in other countries nearly a month after they were first imposed in Italy, Sadiq Khan told the Covid Inquiry today.
The London Mayor said that when he met the then-prime minister in Downing Street on March 19 2020, he “wasn’t aware that in other parts of the world they had lockdowns in place and fines could be issued if you breached the lockdown.
“I was surprised he wasn’t aware of that in relation to what was happening elsewhere.”
This was four weeks after Italy placed some 50,000 people living in outbreak areas in lockdown on February 23.
Public health data had shown that a full lockdown should have been introduced in Britain by March 18 – two weeks earlier than it was, the inquiry has heard.
Local lockdowns had also been implemented in south-east Asia, and the Chinese city of Wuhan had been in under full restrictions since February 13.
The meeting took place three days after Mr Khan was invited to a Cobra meeting for the first time.
He accused the government of failing to keep him informed about the severity of Covid-19 in early 2020, saying “lives could have been saved” if he had been invited to emergency Cobra meetings.
“The government was aware of the challenges in ICU, the challenges in our hospitals, and the government was aware of community transmission in London,” he said.
“In this particular case, I can see no explanation at all why the Greater London Authority and the Mayor of London were not around the table.”
Mr Khan also accused the government of initially having “no understanding” of the importance of gathering data on the impact of Covid on different ethnic groups.
He said that he was “disappointed” government wasn’t “giving us information in February about what they knew then.”
The inquiry also heard then health secretary Matt Hancock knew Tier 3 restrictions would not work when he imposed them on Greater Manchester.
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham accused the government of administering a “punishment beating” for the city in late 2020, following an argument over financial support for residents who were unable to work due to the restrictions.
Quoting from written evidence from Mr Hancock, he said: “He says in his evidence about Tier 3, ‘I was in despair that we had announced a policy that we knew would not work’.”
