Jeremy Hunt has said the UK has “a lot to learn” from Sweden’s response to the Covid pandemic in an exclusive interview with GB News.
The Chancellor joined Esther McVey and Philip Davies to discuss the Government’s handling of the pandemic and why it “abandoned” the plan he had put in place.
Hunt admitted that the UK didn’t “do as well as we could have done” but insisted the country was “one of the best in the world” in its vaccine rollout.
Sweden’s government did not enforce a lockdown on its population, relying instead on people to take personal responsibility.
Jeremy Hunt explained why the Government abandoned his pandemic plan
GB News
Davies pushed Hunt on why the Government abandoned the plan he had put in place to deal with a pandemic.
Hunt said: “I think we all have to be humble about the events of the pandemic because I don't think we did as well as we could have done as a country, although in other ways, our vaccine rollout, we were one of the very best in the world, so there's much to be proud of as well.
“But in terms of preparations, we did prepare exhaustively. John Hopkins University in the United States said we have the second best preparations of anywhere in the world.”
Hunt admitted that the Government had prepared for a flu and not a virus, explaining that the way the two spread is different.
Jeremy Hunt said he had prepared for the wrong type of pandemic
GB News
“Looking back, with the benefit of hindsight, and it is with the benefit of hindsight, I can see that we over focused on preparing for pandemic flu and not for the type of virus that we actually ended up with, which was a coronavirus flu virus.
“It spreads slightly more slowly. So you have the incubation period. A longer incubation period. Which is why, looking back on it, the approach that I advocated when I was chair of the Health Select Committee was really to follow what they were doing in Korea and Taiwan, where they avoided national lockdowns by having a much more effective test and trace system.
Davies interjected: “Do you accept now that Sweden got it right and countries like New Zealand and China got it wrong?”
Hunt responded: “I don't think it was quite so black and white as that, Phil.
Jeremy Hunt said his exchanges with Matt Hancock during the pandemic were "pretty boring".
PA
“I think Sweden and the UK, we used the law, Sweden used a voluntary approach, but we had broadly fairly similar levels of compliance with the lockdowns.
“In retrospect, I think there's a lot to learn from what Sweden did, but I don't think there was such a huge difference. I think the key thing is that we were the very best in the world when it came to getting a vaccine out of the blocks, getting the population vaccinated, getting back to normal. We did far better than Australia, New Zealand”
McVey asked Hunt if people should expect to see him in the controversially leaked Matt Hancock WhatsApp messages that have exposed the then health secretary’s private conversations.
He responded: “Obviously, I had WhatsApp exchanges with Matt because he was health secretary and I was chair of the committee. I think they're all pretty boring. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but nothing quite as salacious as some of the things that we're reading.”