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COVID-19: UK PM Boris Johnson to go back to work Monday

The UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is returning to work after recovering from a coronavirus infection that put him in intensive care, with his government facing growing criticism over the deaths and disruption the virus has caused to the British economy and peopel .

On Sunday, Johnson’s office said he would be back at his desk in 10 Downing St. on Monday, two weeks after he was released from a London hospital. 

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who has been standing in for the prime minister, said Sunday that Johnson was “raring to go.” Britain has recorded more than 20,000 deaths among people hospitalized with COVID-19, the fifth country in the world to reach that total. Thousands more are thought to have died in nursing homes.

Johnson, 55, spent a week at St. Thomas’ Hospital, including three nights in intensive care, where he was given oxygen and watched around the clock by medical workers. After he was released on April 12, he recorded a video message thanking staff at the hospital for saving his life.

The PM has not been seen in public since, as he recovered at Chequers, the prime minister’s country retreat outside London. Opposition politicians say Britain’s coronavirus death toll could have been lower if Johnson’s Conservative government had imposed a nationwide lockdown sooner. 

They are also demanding to know when and how the government will ease the restrictions that were imposed March 23 and run to at least May 7. “Decisions need to be taken quicker and communication with the public needs to be clearer,” opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer said in a letter to Johnson.

“The British public have made great sacrifices to make the lockdown work,” he wrote. “They deserve to be part of an adult conversation about what comes next.”

Despite the toll, which saw another 813 virus-related deaths announced Saturday, some in Britain are growing impatient with the restrictions, which have brought much of the economy and daily life to a halt. Road traffic has begun to creep up after plummeting when the lockdown first was imposed, and some businesses have begun to reopen after implementing social-distancing measures.

Scientists say the U.K. has reached the peak of the pandemic but is not yet out of danger. The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 is declining and the number of daily deaths peaked on April 8.

But with hundreds of new deaths announced each day, some health experts say Britain could eventually have the highest virus death toll in Europe.


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