{"id":7777,"date":"2023-10-31T21:25:38","date_gmt":"2023-10-31T21:25:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/infundpros.com\/business\/uk-hit-by-widespread-failure-in-covid-19-response-inquiry-hears\/"},"modified":"2023-10-31T21:25:38","modified_gmt":"2023-10-31T21:25:38","slug":"uk-hit-by-widespread-failure-in-covid-19-response-inquiry-hears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/infundpros.com\/?p=7777","title":{"rendered":"UK hit by \u2018widespread failure\u2019 in Covid-19 response, inquiry hears"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description\"><span>Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=de6c2cd8-e367-4c04-aa85-2803d2c485fc\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>The UK was hit by \u201cwidespread failure\u201d in its response to Covid-19, the official inquiry into the pandemic has heard, with Boris Johnson believing old people should contract the virus to protect the economy and wavering on whether to impose lockdowns. <\/p>\n<p>Dominic Cummings, former chief adviser to the then-prime minister, said in evidence on Tuesday that a \u201cdysfunctional system\u201d of state led vulnerable groups to be \u201cappallingly neglected\u201d in March 2020.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOverall, it\u2019s widespread failure but pockets\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009doing excellent work,\u201d he said, adding that the Cabinet Office, the department that runs the machinery of government, was a \u201cdumpster fire\u201d and that senior officials going on holiday in February 2020 was \u201cpretty insane\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>His remarks came as the inquiry was shown diary entries from 2020 in which Sir Patrick Vallance, the government\u2019s former chief scientific adviser, wrote that Johnson appeared \u201cobsessed with older people accepting their fate\u201d and considered the virus to be \u201cjust Nature\u2019s way of dealing with\u00a0old people\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>In December 2020, weeks before England entered a third national lockdown, Vallance wrote: \u201cChief whip [Mark Spencer] says \u2018I think we should let the old people get it and protect others\u2019. PM says \u2018a lot of my backbenchers think that and I must say I agree with them\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a WhatsApp message to Lee Cain, then Downing Street\u2019s head of communications, in October 2020, weeks before England\u2019s second lockdown, Johnson wrote: \u201cI must say I have been slightly rocked by some of the data on Covid fatalities. The median age is 82-81 for men and 85 for women. That is above life expectancy. So get Covid and live longer.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>He added: \u201cIt shows we don\u2019t go for nationwide lockdown.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The entries and the messages add to the series of damaging revelations from former top officials about Britain\u2019s response to the global health crisis under Johnson, who served as prime minister between 2019 and 2022.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"n-content-image n-content-image--full\"><picture><source media=\"(min-width: 700px)\"  width=\"2493\" height=\"1402\"><\/source><source media=\"(max-width: 490px)\"  width=\"1271\" height=\"1272\"><\/source><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/infundpros.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/https:\/\/d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net\/production\/247dbe65-33e1-48f6-8bdb-952ef187a0ad.jpg\" alt=\"Dominic Cummings testifies at the inquiry\" data-image-type=\"image\" width=\"2493\" height=\"1402\"><\/picture><figcaption class=\"n-content-picture__caption\"><span>Dominic Cummings, pictured, Boris Johnson\u2019s former chief adviser, described the Cabinet Office as a \u2018dumpster fire\u2019<\/span><span> <!-- -->\u00a9 UK Covid-19 Inquiry<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The inquiry is examining the government\u2019s response to the coronavirus pandemic, including the UK\u2019s preparedness and senior decision-making, and is due to run until the summer of 2026. <\/p>\n<p>In private messages from March 2020 that were seen by the inquiry, Cain said Johnson did not believe Covid was a \u201cbig deal\u201d and thought \u201chis main danger [was] talking [the] economy into a slump\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Cain on Tuesday described Johnson as \u201cchallenging\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009to work with\u201d because he would \u201coscillate\u201d and \u201ctake a decision from the last person in the room\u201d, echoing comments by the government\u2019s most senior civil servant about Johnson changing \u201cstrategic direction every day\u201d as the crisis took hold.<\/p>\n<p>Cain told the inquiry that Johnson\u2019s announcement of a full UK lockdown on March 23 came more than a week after his most senior advisers backed the move on March 14 as \u201cthe only strategy which could suppress the spread of Covid-19, save the NHS from collapse and ultimately buy the government more time\u201d. <\/p>\n<p>Cain admitted the government got its assessment of the virus \u201cwrong\u201d in early 2020, having initially considered the UK \u201cincredibly well prepared\u201d, and that a lack of diversity in Johnson\u2019s top team had led to \u201cblind spots\u201d in policymaking. <\/p>\n<p>He said no \u201cwarning flares\u201d had been communicated to Johnson at the beginning of the year to suggest the UK was not well prepared.<\/p>\n<p>In a WhatsApp message on March 3 2020, Cain told Cummings: \u201cHe [Johnson] doesn\u2019t think it\u2019s a big deal and he doesn\u2019t think anything can be done and his focus is elsewhere, he thinks it\u2019ll be like swine flu and he thinks his main danger is talking economy into a slump.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But in further messages shown to the inquiry, Cummings told Johnson there were \u201cbig problems coming\u201d as the Cabinet Office was \u201cterrifyingly shit\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The inquiry was also shown messages in which Cummings told Johnson that members of his Cabinet were \u201cuseless fuckpigs\u2019\u201d and accused the ex-health secretary Matt Hancock of being \u201cunfit for this job\u201d and obsessed \u201cwith media bullshit\u201d. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cStill no fucking serious testing in care homes his uselessness is still killing God knows how many,\u201d Cummings wrote of Hancock.<\/p>\n<p>Cummings denied he had acted with \u201coffence and misogyny\u201d while working in Number 10 after messages showed he had vowed to \u201cpersonally handcuff\u201d Helen MacNamara, then the civil service\u2019s head of ethics, \u201cand escort her from the building\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>In messages shown to the inquiry, he said: \u201cI don\u2019t care how it\u2019s done but that woman must be out of our hair \u2014 we cannot keep dealing with this horrific meltdown of the British state while dodging stilettos from that c***.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Read the full article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/de6c2cd8-e367-4c04-aa85-2803d2c485fc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The UK&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7777","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-business"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>UK hit by \u2018widespread failure\u2019 in Covid-19 response, inquiry hears | inFundPros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The UK was hit by \u201cwidespread\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/infundpros.com\/?p=7777\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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