Furious Downing Street blasts claim that the PM’s top aide Dominic Cummings once backed ‘herd immunity’ coronavirus strategy by saying ‘if that means some pensioners die, too bad’
- A furious No 10 threatened attacked Sunday Times allegation today
- Paper claimed Cummings backed herd immunity idea in February
- But suggested he changed mind to back a lockdown after new science emerged
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Downing Street lashed out today at a report that Boris Johnson’s top aide Dominic Cummings said the Government was prepared to sacrifice pensioner’s lives to coronavirus to keep the economy afloat.
A furious No 10 hit out after the Sunday Times alleged that the powerful backroom powerbroker initially backed the controversial ‘herd immunity’ idea that sees the vast majority of the population contract the virus in order to build up natural resistance.
Such a move would allow more people to potentially remain working but would have risked leaving the most vulnerable at high risk of death and serious illness and was quickly ruled out by Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
Today’s claim came after Mr Johnson instituted a social shutdown, closing pubs and telling people to self-isolate and spending hundreds of billions on propping up the economy.
According to the Sunday Times, Mr Cummings told people at a private engagement at the end of February the Government’s strategy was ‘herd immunity, protect the economy and if that means some pensioners die, too bad’.
But days later after a meeting of the SAGE group of scientific advisers he underwent a ‘conversion’, the paper claimed, and became a strong supporter of the shutdown and fiscal stimulus.
But this was flatly rejected this morning, with a Downing Street spokesman saying: ‘This is a highly defamatory fabrication which was not put to No10 by the Sunday Times before publication.
‘The article also includes a series of apparent quotes from meetings which are invented’.
A furious No 10 threatened legal action after the Sunday Times alleged that the powerful backroom powerbroker initially backed the controversial ‘herd immunity’ idea that sees the vast majority of the population contract the virus in order to build up natural resistance
A furious No 10 threatened legal action after the Sunday Times alleged that the powerful backroom powerbroker initially backed the controversial ‘herd immunity’ idea that sees the vast majority of the population contract the virus in order to build up natural resistance.
Critics of the Government were quick to jump on the report with shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth saying: ‘The absolute priority has to be saving lives and this must always be what is guiding the government’s decisions.
‘Attitudes like this will not be forgiven and people will be sickened by such comments.
‘Boris Johnson need to show the leadership that this crisis demands. We need clarity from government messages and Ministers must channel all their energies into protecting people’s health, wellbeing and livelihoods.’
Last week Health Minister Matt Hancock and Downing Street were quick to distance themselves from the idea of herd immunity following mounting criticism.
The row blew up after Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said public gatherings such as football matches were not being abandoned as quickly as those in other countries because it would be beneficial if a proportion of the population could be exposed to the new virus – and build up a ‘herd immunity’ to it – otherwise Britain would be vulnerable to future epidemics.
But Mr Hancock insisted the government’s overriding objective was to save lives amid the coronavirus outbreak.
‘We have a plan, based on the expertise of world-leading scientists,’ he wrote in the Telegraph. ‘Herd immunity is not a part of it.’