British PM Johnson defends key aide Cummings over lockdown violation

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on May 24 came in defence of his top aide and one of Brexit's key architects Dominic Cummings after latter faced flak for supposedly flouting lockdown rules and travelling 400 kilometres away from his London home on March 31. Boris Johnson said that Cummings' wife was showing coronavirus symptoms at time of ir travel and he thought that he was likely to get sick too, so, he decided to drop his young son to ir relatives' place. Johnson furr ded that Cummings acted responsibly and legally. 

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"And it is because I take this matter so seriously and frankly it is so serious that I can tell you today I have h an extensive face to face conversations with Dominic Cummings and I have concluded that in travelling to find right kind of childcare, at moment when both he and his wife were about to be incapacitated by a coronavirus. And when he h alternative, I think he followed instincts of every far and every parent. I believe that in every respect he has acted responsibly, and legally, and with integrity, and with overwhelming aim of stopping spre of virus and saving lives," Johnson said during a press conference on May 24. 

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Johnson's government is also facing accusations of hypocrisy as critics recollect when Scotland's former chief medical officer Carine Calderwood h to resign because of similar violation last month after she travelled to her second home amid lockdown. Epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, UK government scientific viser also h to step down earlier this month after media reports emerged that his girlfriend h travelled to London to stay with him amid lockdown. 

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COVID-19 in UK

Apart from defending his top aide Cummings, Boris Johnson also gave out some figures regarding coronavirus pandemic in UK. Johnson said that so far, 3,458,905 tests for coronavirus have been conducted in country, of which 110,401 tests were carried out on May 23. "8,951 people are in hospital with COVID-19 in UK, down 11% from 10,085 this time last week. And sly, of those tested positive for coronavirus, across all settings, 36,793 have w died. That’s an increase of 118 fatalities since yesterday," Johnson said.

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(Im Credit: AP)