During his first day of testimony, Mr Johnson’s apology to the nation was interrupted by four people who staged a protest in the hearing room.
Mr Johnson arrived three hours early on Wednesday morning to dodge the protesters waiting outside. During the day he admitted the pandemic’s impact on the NHS had “bewildered” him. He also acknowledged the government’s policy appeared “incoherent” on the timing of actions in light of the graph in March 2020 suggesting the NHS could be overwhelmed.
Mr Johnson stumbled over his words as the inquiry heard he lost 5,000 WhatsApp messages between January 2020 and June 2020.
He also implied the mad cow disease crisis in Britain made him sceptical of the threat of coronavirus as it “wasn’t nearly as fatal as people had originally believed”.
