Prime Minister Boris Johnson was accused on Tuesday of distorting reality by blaming retirement home negligence for the spread of the new coronavirus in these facilities, which are paying a heavy price for the disease. " We have discovered that too many retirement homes have not really followed the procedures as they should ," the conservative leader said on Monday.
Read also: Boris Johnson on the offensive on the home front to redress the country after the health crisis
These words aroused indignation in the United Kingdom, the most bereaved country in Europe by the pandemic with more than 44,000 deaths of people tested positive, according to the official report. The country has even counted more than 54,000 deaths including suspected cases of Covid-19 disease, including 14,852 in retirement homes in England and Wales, according to figures released Tuesday by the National Bureau of Statistics (ONS).
The toll could be even heavier, with an excess mortality of nearly 30,000 deaths among residents of retirement homes compared to last year, according to the ONS, including about 20,000 attributable to the virus.
" Clumsy and cowardly "
" It was awkward and cowardly at best, " said Mark Adams, who runs the community integrated care manager. " I think history is being rewritten before us, when we could list pages and pages of government failures ," he added to the BBC.
Read also: Boris Johnson struggles to build "Global Britain"
Vic Rayner, director of the National Care Home Forum, regretted on the BBC words " totally out of place " when retirement homes in the country had to " deal with an extraordinary amount of different rules coming from the government almost on a daily basis ".
The Minister of Enterprise, Alok Sharma, tried to come to the rescue of the head of government, ensuring that he did not " blame the retirement homes ". " What the Prime Minister was pointing out was that no one knew what the correct procedures were, because we know that the extent of the asymptomatic cases was not known at the time, " he said. on the BBC.
Boris Johnson criticized for his management
Criticized for its management of the health crisis in the United Kingdom, the government of Boris Johnson was also accused of having been " too slow " to react to protect employees and residents of retirement homes.
At the start of the pandemic, several associations representing the sector were alarmed by the lack of protective equipment and screening and the sometimes premature return to their establishments of Covid-19 patients leaving the hospital. Weekly tests for retirement home workers, and monthly for residents, began rolling out this week.