Home Secretary Priti Patel has denied claims the government pursued a herd immunity policy early in the pandemic.
The prime minister’s former key-aide Dominic Cummings has said in tweets that the UK’s original plan was to let the virus spread through the population – achieving so-called “herd immunity”.
Mr Cummings said No 10 later realised it would be a “catastrophe” and decided to change course.
However, after the claims came to light, the UK Health Security Agency chief said allowing people to become infected “has never been on the agenda”.
Dr Jenny Harries said she had “never been in a government meeting where herd immunity was put forward as a mechanism of control” for the pandemic.
“But bear in mind I would not have been in most of the high-level ones as deputy chief medical officer,” she said.
When asked on the BBC’s Andrew Marr whether herd immunity had been government policy at the beginning of the Covid pandemic, Ms Patel replied “absolutely not”.
She said: “What you’re looking at in a population is to try and see at which point your population would be safe, and this is what we do with this very successful vaccination programme,
“That’s not the same as saying… that the aim would be to allow people to become infected and develop herd immunity.
“That has never been on the agenda but you would always look to see how safe you can get your population through a vaccination programme.”
Editor-in-Chief | Carl D. Pearson has been involved in British politics and media from an early age, with the key knowledge of what it takes to run a news organisation for the 21st century. Mr Pearson, as Editor-in-chief, is responsible for supervising the daily tasks of publishing media and content to UNN’s website and various platforms.
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