UK Home Secretary Denies Claims Of Covid "Herd Immunity" Plans: Report

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's former top aide Dominic Cummings said Britain's early plan to combat COVID-19 was a "disaster".

British Home Secretary Priti Patel on Sunday categorically denied that achieving so-called "herd immunity" was ever the UK government's official policy at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, after allegations by Prime Minister Boris Johnson's former top aide Dominic Cummings claiming otherwise. Dominic Cummings, who had an unceremonious exit from 10 Downing Street last year, is due to give evidence before an influential House of Commons committee hearing next week on the government's handling of the pandemic. Ahead of that appearance before the joint Commons Health and Tech Committee meeting on Wednesday, he issued a series of tweets to allege that the UK's official policy was to let the deadly virus spread through the population and thereby achieve so-called "herd immunity", and that it was only later realised by Downing Street that would be a "catastrophe". "Absolutely not," Ms Patel told the BBC when confronted with the claims on Sunday.