The COVID Diaries – 54 21st May
It’s been a humiliating day for Boris Johnson who has been forced to do a U-turn on charging migrants working for the National Health Service a surcharge for the very services they are helping the UK to provide. The Prime Minister has ordered the removal of the NHS migrant surcharge from health and care workers just a day after he told MPs that imposing the £624 fee on foreign-born NHS workers was “the right way forward”.
And in a second humiliation, Downing Street has confirmed that despite the Prime Minister’s promise, the NHS smartphone app for tracking people who have been in contact with coronavirus patients will not be ready for 1 June, when the lockdown is due to be relaxed further in England. It comes as the UK death toll has increased beyond a 36,000.