Former Boris Johnson aide gives scathing testimony on U.K.'s early COVID response

[brooklynite]

Source: Axios

Cummings testified that in February 2020, Johnson viewed COVID-19 as a "scare story" and suggested that he could have England's chief medical officer inject him with the virus on live television to reassure the public.

Herd immunity — either in September 2020 after a single peak or January 2021 after a second peak — was viewed by the U.K. government as an "inevitability" up until mid-March, Cummings testified. Downing Street has denied that purposely aiming for herd immunity, which would have resulted in mass death, was ever government policy.

Cummings testified that on March 13, a health department official went to him and said: "I have been told for years there was a plan for this. There is no plan. We are in huge trouble. I think we are absolutely f**ked. I think we are heading for disaster. We are going to kill thousands of people."

Cummings said that Health Secretary Matt Hancock "should have been fired for at least 15, 20 things, including lying to everybody on multiple occasions in meeting after meeting in the Cabinet room and publicly." He said he relayed that opinion to Johnson multiple times.

Read more: https://www.axios.com/dominic-cummings-boris-johnson-uk-covid-30d7b5aa-09d6-48e8-9af1-9d0d8577b890.html?utm_campaign=organic&utm_medium=socialshare&utm_source=twitter

[speak easy]

1. Cummings is a freak with bitter delusions of grandeur.

[madaboutharry]

2. To quote the article:

“Cummings is a controversial figure known as the architect behind the Brexit campaign.”

Does he have any credibility? I think not.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. He doesn't have credibility when it comes to defending himself, but for the Tory problems? Yes

He is the equivalent of Steve Bannon. If Bannon said, in congressional testimony, that Trump and the HSS secretary were incompetent liars, and there was a problem because the White House PR machine was preoccupied with a trivial Melania problem (the equivalent of Johnson's fiancee demanding they concentrate on rebutting stories about her dog), it'd be worthwhile news.

If Cummings were saying "everything was done as well as you could reasonably expect", we'd say "well, he would say that, wouldn't he?" But when he trashes the party that put into practice his Brexit ideas, we should take it seriously.

The Guardian fact-checks Cummings:

Claim: Downing Street’s initial Covid plan involved herd immunity

Verdict: True

Claim: World Health Organization and Public Health England failed to fully raise alarm bells in January

Verdict: Largely true

Claim: There was not an emergency fast-track process to deal with procurement

Verdict: To a large extent

Claim: He “cut off” contacts with journalists and “spoke to the media close to zero” in 2020

Verdict: Hard to prove, but smells fishy

Claim: He accepted the MPs’ invitation “to set out the truth of what happened, not to settle scores”

Verdict: Doesn’t quite hold water

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/26/dominic-cummings-evidence-to-mps-on-covid-crisis-fact-checked