Covid inquiry: What we learnt this week

Chickenpox was not a helpful analogueGiving evidence on 8 November,1 Mark Sedwill, the former cabinet secretary and head of the civil service, apologised for proposing in private that a “chickenpox party” approach, to deliberately exposed people to SARS-CoV-2, might be necessary. Sedwill said he understood the proposal now sounded “heartless and thoughtless.” He insisted that “at no point” did he believe covid “was of the same seriousness as chickenpox” but said he made the comment during an early discussion about herd immunity, before meetings in March 2020 where the government realised a change of approach was needed. When Ben Warner, another official, challenged what he said, Sedwill accepted that the analogue was confusing and unhelpful.Boris Johnson wanted to be injected with covid live on TVIn a witness statement Boris Johnson’s former chief of staff Edward Udny-Lister confirmed that in early March 2020 Johnson suggested to civil servants and advisers that…
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