He also said now was not the time to learn lessons, but Labour accused the Conservatives of “monumental mistakes”.
Those mistakes have been well-covered. Some are clear with hindsight, but many were pointed out at the time; not closing our borders to people from virus hotspots sooner, locking down too late, abandoning community testing early on, then spending billions on a track and trace system which couldn’t track and trace tens of thousands of people.
In fact, some would argue that from that moment in March where the prime minister proudly declared he would be shaking hands with covid patients - the country was behind where it needed to be in tackling the pandemic. And has arguably never recovered.