UK Prime Minister ‘still in charge’ of country after hospitalized with virus

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is ‘still in charge’ of the UK government despite spending the night in hospital with coronavirus. Yahoo Finance’s Tom Belger joins the On The Move panel to share the details.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: You're watching Yahoo Finance Live. I'm Julie Hyman. We got some news out of the United Kingdom over the past couple of days that Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who had been diagnosed with coronavirus, is now in hospital over there because of persistent symptoms. We have not seen much reaction in the UK markets that I've noticed. The FTSE, for example, trades higher by about 3%.

Our Tom Belger is joining us with a little more detail on what exactly is going on here. But what do we know about the prime minister's condition, Tom?

TOM BELGER: We're just in the last few minutes. The minister has reiterated that Johnson is in good spirits in hospital. We first got news last night that Johnson had been hospitalized. The issue seems to be, as you say, the symptoms have refused to go away in the 10 days since he was diagnosed. It seems to be about the persistence of those symptoms, rather than the severity.

No official confirmation yet of what treatment or what treatment he's had or how long he might be in hospital. But the government's certainly trying hard to prevent any alarm. It's just interesting, sterling did dip slightly yesterday on the news, but it's since recovered today because the government is saying Johnson is still in charge. He's apparently got his official papers in his hospital bed. And they're saying this is a precautionary admission, rather than an emergency admission.

But there are procedures in place for things like this. It's worth saying the foreign secretary chaired the cabinet meeting today. He's chairing the Downing Street press briefing as we speak. But it is still the worst possible time, frankly, to have a party leader even partly out of action. The government's been under enormous pressure to get ventilators and protective equipment to frontline services more quickly.

And there's a barrage of new figures out today just underlining how much the health of the economy is also deteriorating. UK car sales in March down 44%, construction PMI had its biggest slowdown since 2009, and consumer confidence about fell off its fastest pace since at least the 1970s, the biggest decline in record on one survey. So let's hope for Johnson's sake, as well as the country's sake, that he gets well soon.

RICK NEWMAN: Hey, Tom, it's Rick Newman.

TOM BELGER: Hey.

RICK NEWMAN: This sounds like one of those things that could be worse than these spokespeople are letting on. So for us rubes here in the United States, what is the succession plan in the UK if the prime minister is unable to fulfill his duties?

TOM BELGER: Yeah, there's certainly been rumors swirling for some time last week that his condition may be worse than officials were letting on. And it's quite striking how much of an emphasis the government is placing on trying to reduce that alarm. But frankly, it's hard to say, hard to detail exactly what his condition is.

The reality is, though, that, you know, occasionally, prime ministers are out of action or even to go away on official trips, where the business of government is effectively taken over temporarily by other members of the cabinet often. So in this case, the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, he is seems to be the appointed successor effectively, or temporary replacement for the prime minister, if the worst were to happen and he weren't able to carry on as normal.

JULIE HYMAN: Tom, thanks very much for bringing us up to speed on the situation there. Appreciate it.