Boris Johnson’s former top adviser says herd immunity was UK plan to fight coronavirus

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.