{"id":115332,"date":"2021-05-28T08:16:18","date_gmt":"2021-05-28T08:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/?p=115332"},"modified":"2021-05-28T08:16:18","modified_gmt":"2021-05-28T08:16:18","slug":"uk-pm-johnson-considered-having-covid-injection-in-early-2020-ex-adviser-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/markets\/uk-pm-johnson-considered-having-covid-injection-in-early-2020-ex-adviser-says\/","title":{"rendered":"UK PM Johnson considered having COVID injection in early 2020, ex-adviser says"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was disastrously slow to impose a lockdown in 2020 because he thought COVID-19 was a scare story and even considered getting injected with coronavirus on live television to show it was benign, his former chief adviser said.<\/p>

Dominic Cummings, former special advisor for Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson faces questions from lawmakers over the government’s COVID-19 response, in London,Britain, May 26, 2021, in this screen grab taken from video. Reuters TV via REUTERS<\/figcaption>

Johnson subsequently caught COVID-19 early in the pandemic and was so ill that he was moved to intensive care at a London hospital where he received litres of oxygen. He later said plans had been prepared to announce his death.<\/p>\n

In a blistering attack on the British state, Dominic Cummings told lawmakers that the government was completely unprepared for the worst public health crisis in decades and that ministers, including the prime minister, were on holiday in February 2020, some skiing.<\/p>\n

Such was Johnson\u2019s scepticism about COVID-19, he even told officials he was considering getting the government\u2019s chief medical advisor to inject him with the novel coronavirus to show the public it was not a big threat, Cummings said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe prime minister regarded this as just a scare story,\u201d Cummings said, adding the view of officials was Johnson\u2019s attitude was \u201cdon\u2019t worry about it and I\u2019m going to get Chris Whitty to inject me live on TV with coronavirus\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the public needed us most, the government failed,\u201d Cummings told lawmakers, adding that it was \u201ccrackers\u201d that someone such as Johnson got to be prime minister.<\/p>\n

Cummings cast the state as woefully disorganised, dominated by \u201cgroupthink\u201d and run by ministers such as Health Secretary Matt Hancock who, he said, should be sacked for lying to the public and the government.<\/p>\n

The health ministry declined to comment. With almost 128,000 deaths, the United Kingdom has the world\u2019s fifth worst official COVID-19 toll.<\/p>\n

Though Cummings\u2019s attacks have so far failed to dent the prime minister\u2019s popularity, his testimony is likely to form the broad lines of scrutiny of a public inquiry next year into the COVID-19 response.<\/p>\n

Related Coverage<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

COVID \u2018DISASTER\u2019<\/p>\n

Asked about Cummings\u2019s critique at a weekly question-and-answer session in parliament, Johnson said nobody could credibly accuse him or his government of complacency.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have worked flat out to minimise loss of life,\u201d said Johnson. He did not directly address many of Cummings\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n

Asked if Britain\u2019s top civil servant had disclosed he had lost faith in Hancock\u2019s honesty, Johnson said: \u201cThe answer to that is no…and I\u2019m afraid I haven\u2019t had the benefit of seeing the evidence that he\u2019s (Cummings) bringing to the house.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cummings, the strategist behind the 2016 Brexit campaign and Johnson\u2019s landslide election win in 2019, left Downing Street, carrying his personal belongings in a box, in late 2020 after falling out with Johnson.<\/p>\n

His evidence before lawmakers gave an alarming insight into the heart of the British government as it grappled with the onset of what would become the most devastating public health crisis in a century.<\/p>\n

The West, Cummings said, failed during the crisis and British officials were resistant to accepting that they should follow the example of Asian powers in locking down the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe truth is that senior ministers, senior officials, senior advisers like me, fell disastrously short of the standards that the public has a right to expect of its government in a crisis like this,\u201d Cummings said.<\/p>

Slideshow ( 4 images )<\/span><\/figcaption>

He related meetings in early 2020 when it started to dawn on some officials that Johnson\u2019s resistance to a lockdown was a deadly mistake. Cummings said there was no COVID plan and certainly no plan for a lockdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve come through here to the Prime Minister\u2019s Office to tell you, quote, I think we are absolutely fucked. I think this country is headed for disaster. I think we\u2019re going to kill 1000s of people,\u201d Cummings quoted Helen MacNamara, deputy cabinet secretary, as saying.<\/p>\n

Reuters has reported how Britain was slow to spot the infections arriving, was late with a lockdown and it continued to discharge infected elderly hospital patients into care homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cSORRY\u201d<\/p>\n

There was no data system to deal with COVID, no way to understand its spread and there was \u201cnot even a plan to bury all the bodies\u201d, Cummings said.<\/p>\n

Johnson has admitted that mistakes were made and that lessons need to be learned, but his ministers say they were working at pace in the biggest public health crisis in a century.<\/p>\n

\u201cI take full responsibility for everything that has happened,\u201d Johnson told lawmakers on Wednesday. \u201cAs I\u2019ve said before … I am truly sorry for the suffering that the people of this country have experienced.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has pointed to Britain\u2019s vaccination programme as a success that will allow the economy to rebound before its peers.<\/p>\n

Cummings, played by Benedict Cumberbatch in the film \u201cBrexit: The Uncivil War\u201d, also said he was sorry for being too slow to hit the emergency button.<\/p>\n

\u201cI failed and I apologise,\u201d he said, adding that at one point, he pointed to images of Italy on the television in an attempt to convince Johnson that a lockdown was essential.<\/p>\n

Source: Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LONDON (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was disastrously slow to impose a lockdown in 2020 because he thought COVID-19 was a scare story and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":115331,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nUK PM Johnson considered having COVID injection in early 2020, ex-adviser says - Fin2me<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/markets\/uk-pm-johnson-considered-having-covid-injection-in-early-2020-ex-adviser-says\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UK PM Johnson considered having COVID injection in early 2020, ex-adviser says - Fin2me\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"LONDON (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was disastrously slow to impose a lockdown in 2020 because he thought COVID-19 was a scare story and [...]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/markets\/uk-pm-johnson-considered-having-covid-injection-in-early-2020-ex-adviser-says\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fin2me\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-05-28T08:16:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/UK-PM-Johnson-considered-having-COVID-injection-in-early-2020-ex-adviser-says.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/markets\/uk-pm-johnson-considered-having-covid-injection-in-early-2020-ex-adviser-says\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/markets\/uk-pm-johnson-considered-having-covid-injection-in-early-2020-ex-adviser-says\/\",\"name\":\"UK PM Johnson considered having COVID injection in early 2020, ex-adviser says - 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