London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

Dominic Cummings reiterates claim herd immunity was initial UK policy

Dominic Cummings reiterates claim herd immunity was initial UK policy

Priti Patel denied comments by Boris Johnson’s former chief aide on handling of pandemic
Dominic Cummings has reiterated his argument that herd immunity was the UK government’s initial plan to respond to coronavirus, saying public documents back up his claims despite ministers’ dismissals.

In a likely curtain-raiser to a much-anticipated appearance next week before a Commons committee, Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser said the plan was changed only after ministers believed it would bring mass deaths and an economic “implosion”.

In an earlier contribution to a lengthy Twitter thread begun nearly a week ago, Cummings had on Saturday dismissed as “bullshit” the insistence of Matt Hancock, the health secretary, and other ministers, that herd immunity was not considered.

Herd immunity means enough people within a population gaining resistance to a virus such that it no longer spreads unchecked, and this can happen through vaccination. But Cummings’ contention was that ministers believed it should take place by enough people contracting Covid and getting natural immunity.

Priti Patel dismissed Cummings’ claims during TV interviews on Sunday. “Not at all, no. Absolutely not,” the home secretary told the BBC. Colleagues who were in top-level meetings on Covid at the start of the pandemic “will absolutely recognise that from the discussions that we had”, she added.

She was supported by Dr Jenny Harries, who was deputy chief medical officer for England at the start of the pandemic. Harries told the BBC: “I can categorically say I have never been in any government meeting where herd immunity was put forward at that point of the pandemic as a mechanism of control.”

Before the first lockdown in March last year, Sir Patrick Vallance, England’s chief scientific adviser, spoke openly about delays to measures potentially helping to create herd immunity. Vallance subsequently denied this was an official policy.

In a new series of tweets, Cummings pointed to government-released graphs from the start of the pandemic showing projections for a single, prolonged but flattened wave of infections and deaths, with herd immunity described as “the optimal single-peak strategy”.

In the week of 9 March last year, Cummings wrote, Hancock and Michael Gove’s Cabinet Office belatedly “understood herd immunity effects: 100s of 1000s choking to death + no NHS for *anybody* for months + dead unburied + econ implosion; so we moved to Plan B: suppression + Manhattan Project for drugs/vaccines + test&trace etc”.

He added: “Critical as I am of the PM in all sorts of ways, it’s vital to understand the disaster was not just his fault: the official plan was disastrously misconceived, [the Department of Health and Cabinet Office] did not understand this or why, & a PlanB had to be bodged amid total & utter chaos.”

In his tweets Cummings did not specifically outline whether he, as a key participant in the discussions, had consistently argued for an early and robust lockdown to limit the impact of Covid.

He is scheduled to give evidence on Wednesday to the Commons health and science committees as part of a joint investigation into lessons that can be learned from the way Covid was handled in the UK.

In his earlier tweets, Cummings, who was ousted from Downing Street in November last year, said the media uncritically accepted assurances from Hancock that herd immunity was never considered as a strategy.

“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,” he wrote.

Asked about the tweets, Patel said: “I can’t speak for Mr Cummings and one individual.” She added: “I’m not going to comment on what Mr Cummings is going to say, or also what is being speculated about right now.”
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×