Boris Johnson ‘obsessed with older people accepting their fate’, says Covid inquiry – Covid inquiry video
The former prime minister had said his party believed the virus was “nature’s way of dealing with old people” and was not convinced the NHS was overwhelmed
Boris Johnson told senior advisers that the Covid virus was “just nature’s way of dealing with old people” and that he was “no longer buying” the fact that the NHS was being overwhelmed during the pandemic -I learned about the investigation.
In a WhatsApp message sent to his top aides in October 2020, the former prime minister said he had been “mildly shocked” by Covid infection rates and suggested he was therefore unconvinced despite public warnings from the NHS is that hospitals are on the brink, bosses and frontline staff.
From secret diaries to WhatsApps: four findings from the Covid investigation
Former chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance described in his diaries a “crazy exchange” at a meeting in August. He noted that Johnson seemed “obsessed with older people accepting their fate” and younger people moving on with their lives during the pandemic.
Another note from Vallance after a meeting in December 2020 hinted at the power the Conservative Party was wielding from the right during the pandemic: “The Prime Minister said he acted early and the public was on his side (but his party was not ).
“He says his party thinks the whole thing is pathetic and that Covid is just nature’s way of dealing with old people – and I’m not entirely sure I disagree with them. A lot of moderate people think it’s a little too much.’”
Vallance’s diary also recounts how then Prime Minister Mark Spencer said at a Cabinet meeting in December 2020 that “we should leave it to the old people and protect others”. He said Johnson then added: “Many of my backbenchers think that and I have to say I agree with them.”
Although the number of Covid infections was rising at the time, Johnson told the gathering that he wanted to move to level 3 restrictions instead.
The documents emerged during a heated meeting of the former prime minister’s Covid inquiry, where former senior advisers Lee Cain and Dominic Cummings questioned his suitability for the role during the pandemic in evidence.
‘People are going to die anyway’: Pressure on Boris Johnson over Covid news
Cummings had previously claimed in July 2021 that Johnson was unwilling to impose lockdown restrictions in autumn 2020 to stop the spread of Covid because “the people who are dying are essentially all over 80”.
In response to news released by the inquiry, Cain told the inquiry’s lawyers on Tuesday: “I think he was concerned about the harm to society as a whole and he tried to look at it through that lens.”
“Some of the wording is obviously not what I would have used, but for me the main argument was always the same: they have chosen to contain and control the virus, and to do so as quickly as possible, to minimize health costs .” and at the same time costs to the economy.”
In a WhatsApp exchange between the then-Prime Minister and Cain in October 2020, Johnson wrote: “I have to say I have been slightly shocked by some of the data on Covid deaths.” The average age is 82-81 for men, 85 for women. That is above life expectancy. So get Covid and live longer.
“Hardly anyone under 60 goes to hospital (4%), and virtually all of them survive. And I don’t buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff anymore. Guys, I think we may need to recalibrate. There is a maximum of 3m over 80 in this country.”
In his statement to the inquest, Cain said: “I think he [Johnson] He acted late on some measures, particularly the subsequent lockdowns, but he actually did what I consider to be the moral and responsible thing to do. It was just later than it should have been.”
But the former No. 10 communications director said he and other officials were concerned that lessons from the previous lockdown had not been learned.
“I think you can forgive some mistakes in the first lockdown because things are moving at an incredible speed. We built the train tracks that way while the train was moving,” Cain said.
“As we entered this later phase, I think the No. 10 hull felt that although we learned all those lessons from the first phase of lockdown, we are now trying to ignore them again and exactly the same mistakes to repeat?”
Brenda Doherty, spokesperson for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, said: “While Covid-19 was ravaging the country and I was doing everything I could to protect my mother, Boris Johnson was unable to make decisions , and left the country.” at the mercy of the virus from which he was supposed to protect her.
“When the second wave came and thousands, like my mother, had died, he said that you would ‘live longer if you caught Covid’, that he didn’t buy ‘all that NHS overwhelmed stuff’ and agreed “We should leave it to the old people.”
“He clearly didn’t see people like my mother as human beings, and thousands of others died needlessly after the same mistakes were repeated because of Johnson’s callous and brutal attitude. I would do anything to spend another day with my mother and now we know that if only the country had had a more humane Prime Minister when the pandemic struck, we would have had many years together.”
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