Cummings claims that UK government's original plan WAS 'herd immunity by September'

Noah Carl
Lockdown Sceptics
Sat, 22 May 2021 17:01 UTC

© GETTY

In early March of 2020, there was rising public concern that the UK was taking an altogether different approach to its neighbours, leading some people to joke that Britain was the world's "control group". To allay public fears, the health Secretary Matt Hancock wrote an op-ed in The Telegraph on March 15th, in which he claimed that "herd immunity" was not part of the government's plan. Here's the full quote:

We have a plan, based on the expertise of world-leading scientists. Herd immunity is not a part of it. That is a scientific concept, not a goal or a strategy. Our goal is to protect life from this virus, our strategy is to protect the most vulnerable and protect the NHS through contain, delay, research and mitigate.

Now Dominic Cummings - the former chief advisor to Boris Johnson, who left No. 10 "with immediate effect" in mid November - has claimed that the government did intend to pursue a "herd immunity" strategy. At 3:38 this afternoon, Cummings tweeted:

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

In a subsequent tweet, Cummings elaborated on why the government's original plan was "ditched". He writes:

In week of 9/3, No10 was made aware by various people that the official plan wd lead to catastrophe. It was then replaced by Plan B. But how 'herd immunity by Sep' cd have been the plan until that week is a fundamental issue in the whole disaster

What Cummings says is of course broadly consistent with the statements Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance had made up until the date of Hancock's article, as well as with the infamous 'UK Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy 2011'. For example, in a hearing of the Health and Social Care Committee on March 5th, Whitty said, "what we're very keen to do is not intervene until the point we absolutely have to, so as to minimise economic and social disruption."

Opinions obviously differ about whether the original plan would "lead to catastrophe", but it's interesting to have an insider's perspective on the Government's early planning.

Stop Press: In a further tweet, Cummings has accused the Government of lying. He writes:

No10 decided to lie: 'herd immunity has never been... part of our coronavirus strategy'. V foolish, & appalling ethics, to lie about it. The right line wd have been what PM knows is true: our original plan was wrong & we changed when we realised

Comment: From Orwell's 1984:

And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed - if all records told the same tale - then the lie passed into history and became truth. "Who controls the past," ran the Party slogan, "controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. "Reality control," they called it: in Newspeak, "doublethink."

• Top UK advisor Cummings was instrumental in coercing scientists on SAGE committee to implement lockdown
• 'Mr. Brexit' UK govt advisor Dominic Cummings is on 'secret' scientific advisory group coordinating Covid-19 lockdown
• Top Oxford scientist: Covid-19 pandemic practically over, we already have herd immunity
• The data suggest we achieved herd immunity before the vaccines were rolled out