Catastrophic failure in corona management, says British ex-adviser

“Leading ministers, officials and I were catastrophically far away from people’s expectations,” he said, claiming that the prime minister did not learn from the mistakes and was unfit for the job.

The initial response to the pandemic in Britain was slow and chaotic, said Dominic Cummings, pointing out that many Western countries, including Britain, did not realize what kind of crisis was on the rise.

– I thought «Oh my God, what is this? Is this what people have been shouting about all along? ” , Cummings said in a hearing in Parliament’s Science and Health Committee on Wednesday, reports BBC.

“People did not receive the treatment they were entitled to, and many were left to fend for themselves in horrific circumstances,” he said.

Britain has recorded the highest number of deaths in Europe, with 128,000 deaths, and as a result of three long shutdowns one of the world’s deepest economic downturns after the pandemic.

The alarm did not ring

He believes the alarm bells did not ring in the World Health Organization (WHO) and other health organizations worldwide.

– I think it is obvious that many, many organizations failed, says Cummings, but points out that Taiwan closed its borders and implemented a plan already on New Year’s Eve 2019.

– In the West, including in the UK, we were not able to see through the smoke, Cummings says.

– Hollow claims

Cummings apologized for not pushing for more and followed up on his previous concerns about the coronavirus in January.

He said people at the Prime Minister’s Office in 10 Downing Street were told that plans had been made to deal with a pandemic and that “everyone knows what to do”.

The former top adviser says that “it is tragic in a way” that he had people who asked questions about established practice in a number of areas, but not this.

“If I had, the government would have realized much sooner that allegations that preparations were underway were completely hollow,” says Cummings.

– Key people on holiday

He further says that there was no feeling that it was urgent until the last week in February.

– The government and Downing Street were not on the warpath until the end of February. In the middle of the month, many key people were literally on a skiing holiday, Cummings said. He claimed he himself spent more and more time on the pandemic in February, while Johnson was on vacation.

He said that Johnson initially saw the virus only as a scare story or as a new swine flu, and that he considered getting infected with the virus on live TV to allay people’s fears.

In March, the government was marked by chaos reminiscent of a film about lost control, according to him.

– It was like the movie Independence Day, where Jeff Goldblum says that “the aliens are on their way and the whole plan is broken”, he said.

Johnson finally shut down the country and was admitted to the intensive care unit with covid-19 in April, where he barely survived.

Looking back, Cummings says he should have sounded the alarm much more clearly in February than he did.

Got fired

He was for a long time Boris Johnson’s most important and powerful adviser, but resigned last year.

Cummings has previously accused Johnson of lying about the government’s corona strategy. Among other things, he has claimed that herd immunity was a goal, something Johnson has rejected.

He himself hijacked the front pages when in May last year he drove 400 kilometers from the south to the north of England with his family after he himself had been infected. He claimed that he would seek help for childcare in case he became ill, an explanation that was much questioned.

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