Responding to Michael Gove’s appearance on Sophy Ridge this morning, Acting Leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey said: “The Liberal Democrats have been calling for a comprehensive test, trace and isolate strategy from early in the crisis and like so many have been frustrated by the slowness in Ministers’ actions.
“Yet the Government’s latest approach on tracing is totally inadequate. The experience in other countries suggests we will need more than 18,000 people to undertake the tracing work and the failure of Whitehall Ministers to engage with communities to deliver an effective tracing strategy is lamentable.
“Ministers must listen to others on tracing given their testing strategy has been so poorly delivered. Even now, the UK’s testing capacity, in particular the speed of testing, and the availability of protective equipment for frontline workers must be stepped up if we are to slow the spread of coronavirus.
“We have seen what has happened in our care homes due to the Government’s failure to properly protect people from the virus. It is simply not true for Ministers to now assert they put a ‘protective ring’ around care homes when everyone knows that is false, and it only adds insult to injury for the bereaved.
“Government Ministers must now get a grip on the crisis urgently rather than wasting time patting themselves on the back when in truth they have been shambolic.”