Top British scientist defends modelling of coronavirus outbreak

Britain's chief scientific adviser on Thursday defended officials' response to the novel coronavirus outbreak, saying that modelling was carried out quickly enough to effectively inform Britain's reaction to the pandemic.

"It's not correct that we didn't model it til March. We modelled it throughout February," Patrick Vallance said in response to a question about a Reuters special report which details how scientists in Britain were slow to sound the alarm about the pandemic.

Asked by Reuters why members of the modelling committee said that they had not carried out modelling until March, Vallance said: "I know what happened, and I've just told you what happened, and the modelling came in from a variety of different sources."