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Boris Johnson skipped five cobra meetings on the coronavirus outbreak at the start of the year, before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. The Prime Minister missed a number of emergency meetings, which is attended by leading ministers, intelligence chiefs and other experts, in January and February just as the outbreak started to worsen, the Sunday Times reports. Piers Morgan has responded to the report and branded it a "scandal".

Mr Johnson was absent from one meeting, yet found the time to join in a lunar new year dragon eyes ritual to celebrate the Chinese New Year. The other meetings were understood to have been skipped in order to prioritise his personal life and other domestic issues, such as Brexit and his cabinet reshuffle. The Prime Minister then spent two weeks of the half-term break with his pregnant fiancée, Carrie Symonds. The first cobra meeting attended by Mr Johnson was on March 2, when the outbreak had already started to grip the country. Please sign up to pledge your support now to our brave NHS Heroes

Boris Johnson missed five cobra meetings in the early stages of coronavirus

Boris Johnson skipped one meeting the day he celebrated the Chinese New Year

As a result, one senior Government adviser has heavily criticised Mr Johnson for lack of leadership. They told the newspaper: “There’s no way you’re at war if your PM isn’t there. “And what you learn about Boris was he didn’t chair any meetings. He liked his country breaks. He didn’t work weekends. "It was like working for an old-fashioned chief executive in a local authority 20 years ago. JUST IN: Coronavirus POLL: Is Nicola Sturgeon wrong to publish her exit plan?

Boris Johnson spent some of the half-term break with Carrie Symonds

"There was a real sense that he didn’t do urgent crisis planning. "It was exactly like people feared he would be.” At the beginning of the year, the Government insisted the threat from coronavirus was "low" and the country was well prepared for an outbreak. Speaking in the House of Commons in January, Matt Hancock said: "The Chief Medical Officer continues to advise that the risk to the UK population is “low” and has concluded that while there is an increased likelihood that cases may arise in this country, we are well prepared and well equipped to deal with them." But the Government has been accused of failing to fully prepare the country for an outbreak, especially in regards to the country's stockpile of personal protective equipment (PPE).

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