Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds the daily news conference on the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak with the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty (not pictured) and the Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance (not pictured), at 10 Downing Street in London, Britain May 28, 2020. Pippa Fowles/10 Downing Street/Handout via REUTERS
LONDON (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is in charge of the government’s coronavirus response and always has been, a junior minister said on Wednesday after a report that Johnson was taking control of the crisis.
The Telegraph newspaper said Johnson was taking back control of the crisis with a Downing Street shakeup: two committees will make decisions about the government’s response.
“The prime minister is the head of this government and the prime minister runs this government. The prime minister has always been in charge,” junior health minister Edward Argar told Sky News when asked about the report.
Asked about the government’s COVID-19 tracing system, he said: “We are into the thousands being successfully traced at the moment, I don’t have the precise figures because we are working with the UK Statistics Authority to agree the process to make sure that they accept it’s reliable.”
Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton, Editing by Kylie MacLellan