Dominic Cummings reportedly led the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic with a strategy that protected the economy and put the elderly at risk.
According to Sunday Times reports the unelected advisor pushed a discredited “herd immunity” response, saying the prerogative was to “protect the economy and if that means some pensioners die, too bad.”
Herd immunity
Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, announced in mid-March that the UK would be taking a different route to other countries in imposing gradual restrictions to allow “enough of us who are going to get mild illness to become immune”.
The strategy was reversed after a study from Imperial College London showed how badly hospitals would be overwhelmed, with the Prime Minister ordering all pubs, restaurants, gyms, and cinemas to close on Friday.
But the delay could have been costly.
“Thousands will die because of his apathy and arrogance”
David Lammy tweeted today that “this must be the last slogan Dominic Cummings gets to use to govern Britain”, adding that “thousands will die because of his apathy and arrogance”.
MP Stewart McDonald called for Cummings to go, while James O’Brien said it confirmed our worst fears about how the government is being run.
And there it is. Worst fears apparently confirmed. Every single time you told yourself it couldn’t all be down to the pound shop Machiavelli, that nobody could allow these life & death decisions to be taken on the fly, a little voice piped up to remind you who was Prime Minister. pic.twitter.com/yTx48S5lvZ
— James O’Brien (@mrjamesob) March 22, 2020
Neoliberal thinking
Downing Street has pushed back hard on the comments, calling it a “highly defamatory fabrication which “includes a series of apparent quotes from meetings which are invented”.
But many have suspected that it could have been the government’s strategy all along.
In a TLE exclusive, postdoctoral researcher T.J. Coles argued that neoliberal thinking has infected the Tory government’s COVID-19 response and has put the nation at risk.
He said the government’s laissez-faire attitude is a reflection of the broader market-oriented philosophy which says that economic nature must take its course.
Read the piece in full here.
I only hope that cummings does not have to see loved dying because his uncaring , ignorant policy.
What this person forgets it is not money which makes a country great but the people who make it great.
The he goes the better and joins the ranks the unemployable the better.
I doubt he is capable of love.
Instead of coronavirus think polio, smallpox, typhus, yellow fever. When they came the sick were isolated and treated, the suspected cases were put in quarantine and the uninfected took precautions. What did Johnson do? He allowed the tiny number of infected to mingle freely with the whole population, he made no attempt to trace and quarantine their contacts and asked the hugely more numerous to self isolate…
It’s difficult to imagine a response that is more helpful to spreading the virus.
We can, and should, blame Cummings for the excess deaths but don’t forget that those who employ him heard exactly what they wanted to hear!
Boris is the Boss. He listens to his advice , but what he does with it is his decision.
He was wrong, wrong here. No good trying pass the buck,
Also If it was war, and soldiers guns had faults, Im sure new stock would arrive. The fact that our front line workers that saved his life, have not got enough PPE is nothing short of a disgrace. It could not be more bad.
How would he feel if it was his father that died due to his policy.
Sack him now. This is no more than a disgrace.
Unfortunately if the government had really been led by science it would have immediately monitored flights in & out of all UK aireports. Tracked, traced, tested & isolated everyone returning from infected countries (we are an island, the virus can not travel hundreds of miles) If this had happened at the same time of closing all public events, pubs etc & informing the public about social distancing we would not had the enorous spike of deaths as the virus would have been contained before. It’s about breaking the chain, not allowing hundreds of new chains to pop up.
This is exactly what you would have expected. Mekonic, no humanity.