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22 May 2020updated 06 Oct 2020 9:45am

Top UK scientist says government lacks strategy for tackling virus

By Samuel Horti

One of the UK’s most respected scientists has said the government is constantly playing catch up with the coronavirus because ministers lack a coherent strategy.

Paul Nurse, a Nobel prize winning geneticist and head of the Francis Crick Institute in London, said the country was “desperate for clear leadership at all levels”, and that if there was a clear strategy for tackling the virus, “I don’t see it”.

“The question I’m constantly asking myself is who is in charge of the decisions, who is developing the strategy, and the operation and implementation of that strategy?” he told the BBC.

“I get a sense the UK has been rather too much on the back foot, increasingly playing catch up, firefighting through successive crises… We have lions on the front line of clinical care, we need lions also on the leadership so we can actually really drive this forward.”

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