This is a story in The Guardian reporting on a story in the Sunday Times which, apparently, asserts that Dominic Cummins was behind the government’s initial lunatic and unscientific “herd immunity” approach to SAS-Cov-2. I can’t access the Sunday Times article as it is behind a paywall.
No. 10 has called this story a “fabrication”.
This website has already asked the question as to whether Dominic Cummins was specifically involved in the lunatic and unscientific herd-immunity plan. Beyond noticing certain similarities in thinking we have no information which would enable us to clarify this question. The Sunday Times article references unnamed sources and presumably was written by a professional journalist – but I am in no position to decide.
What I do find interesting is the way the Guardian’s Political Correspondent, Peter Walker, is already trying to cover up what happened. The government initially tried to implement a “herd immunity” scheme which meant, in effect, not doing anything. They did this almost certainly to protect the economy and based on a mistaken understanding of the science. At a certain point they changed tack and are now more or less (bar the extraordinary lack of testing **) in line with the mainstream science: social distancing and quarantining to reduce the infection rate. Peter Walker writes:
While the phrase “herd immunity” was used by government figures such as Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, No 10 has denied it was ever a tactic. However, the use of the phrase illustrated initial tensions within government over how to balance the economic impact of a full national lockdown against the potential number of deaths from the virus.
This is a total fabrication. Vallance did not simply “use” the term “herd immunity”. He clearly stated that it was the government’s policy to “aim” for herd immunity in order to prepare for a second wave. Walker is for some reason simply helping with the government cover-up.
That this is exactly what happened is explained, with supporting quotes, by Richard Horton, Editor of The Lancet, here. Note especially that Richard Horton points out that even a child could have worked out that the herd immunity plan would have involved nearly 400,000 deaths. (This website pointed this out very early on).
This is Richard Horton, Editor of The Lancet (in the same linked article above) commenting on the BBC’s attempt to cover-up this scandal:
Many journalists, led by the BBC, reported that “the science had changed” and so the government had responded accordingly. But this interpretation of events is wrong. [1]
Here we can see a government adviser, Dr Richard Halpern, a behavioral scientist (i.e not an epidemiologist or clinical practitioner) confirming in unambiguous terms that the aim was herd immunity:
There’s going to be a point, assuming the epidemic flows and grows, as we think it probably will do, where you’ll want to cocoon, you’ll want to protect those at-risk groups so that they basically don’t catch the disease and by the time they come out of their cocooning, herd immunity’s been achieved in the rest of the population. [2]
Here a vaccine scientist confirms that as of now no one knows if having covid-19 will confer immunity or not. Scientists have already noticed some genetic drift.
So, in short, the government tried to go for a lunatic and unscientific herd immunity plan – based probably on the advice of ‘behavioural experts’ rather than doctors and public health experts. [3] They then changed tactic when faced with mounting (and entirely predictable) casualties. And the “progressive” media the Guardian and the BBC are doing their appointed role of covering up this massive failing by the government. To be more accurate, individual journalists are not always covering up for the government. Some are laying clear the errors. But at the editorial and management level the papers (at least the liberal-progressive press) support the government in all circumstances.
The question now for No. 10 is – if it wasn’t Dominic Cummins then who was it? Will anyone ever be held accountable for this?
Notes
- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/18/coronavirus-uk-expert-advice-wrong
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/herd-immunity-will-the-uks-coronavirus-strategy-work
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/01/absolutely-wrong-how-uk-coronavirus-test-strategy-unravelled (Nb. I added this note on 1/4/20)
** update 1/4/20 – of course there is a direction connection as this article makes clear. It was because they were dithering about with the lunatic and unscientific “herd immunity” idea that they missed the opportunity to buy the tests. Now – tests can’t be got for love or money.
