Boris Johnson’s former top adviser says herd
immunity was UK plan to fight coronavirus
Former top aide to Boris Johnson says plan was ‘part
disaster, part non-existent.’
BY PAUL
DALLISON
May 23,
2021 10:16 am
Dominic
Cummings, one-time senior adviser to Boris Johnson and now a perpetual thorn in
the U.K. prime minister's side, claimed the government pursued a policy of herd
immunity to combat the coronavirus, while launching personal attacks against
Johnson and his health secretary, Matt Hancock.
In a
42-tweet tirade late Saturday, Cummings, who was sacked by Johnson in November
last year after a vicious power struggle, claimed that if “competent” people
had been in charge of the coronavirus strategy, it may have been possible to
avoid the first lockdown and there would "definitely" have been no
need for lockdowns two and three.
He said the
COVID plan "was supposed to be ‘world class’ but turned out to be part disaster,
part non-existent."
Cummings
said herd immunity was the government’s plan all along — until less than two
weeks before the first lockdown was enforced. It was abandoned, he claimed,
only when ministers were warned that it would lead to “hundreds of thousands
choking to death” in hospitals.
In another
tweet, he wrote that in early March 2020, “No10 was made aware by various
people" that the official plan would "lead to catastrophe. It was
then replaced by Plan B. But how ‘herd immunity by Sep’ could have been the
plan until that week is a fundamental issue in the whole disaster.”
He also
wrote that "media generally abysmal on covid but even I’ve been surprised
by 1 thing: how many hacks have parroted Hancock’s line that ‘herd immunity
wasn’t the plan’ when 'herd immunity by Sep' was *literally the official plan
in all docs/graphs/meetings* until it was ditched."
He added
that many people were "happy to believe Hancock's bullshit" that herd
immunity was not the plan "so they didn’t have to face the shocking
truth."
Downing
Street is already bracing for Wednesday, when Cummings is scheduled to appear
before a House of Commons select committee inquiry into the handling of
COVID-19.
Last month,
Cummings launched a damning attack on his former boss, accusing him of favoring
his fiancée’s friends and pursuing “unethical” funding for a redesign of the
No. 10 flat where the PM and his partner Carrie Symonds live.
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