Covid inquiry live: Priti Patel admits policing of Sarah Everard vigil was ‘totally inappropriate’

Dominic Cummings said the government’s “Contain, Delay, Mitigate” Covid plan, published in March 2020, was “pretty much a joke”, Archie Mitchell reports.

The former No10 chief of staff said there was a sense in Downing Street of “hang on a second, we have been told that we’re the best prepared in the world… this document is pretty much a joke”.

“What the hell is going on?” he added.

He said the action plan was one of “many documents” that demonstrated the government was “miles off the pace” in dealing with Covid.

Dominic Cummings has said Covid in February 2020 was seen as a “distant problem” and not an “immediate crisis”, with Boris Johnson and other senior officials on holiday, Archie Mitchell reports.

Grilled on why the prime minister did not receive any briefing between February 14 and February 24, Mr Cummings said it was because it was not “seen as an imminent crisis”.

He told the Covid inquiry: “I did not go on holiday but many people were on holiday during that time.”

He added that it was “insane” so many senior people, including the PM, were on holiday. “There was indeed a massive crisis,” he said.

Dominic Cummings agreed that without a scaled-up test and trace system, shutting the borders would not have sufficed in combating the spread of coronavirus.

But he said: “It’s half of the nub of the issue, but the other half of the nub is that if you regard the whole thing in a fatalistic way anyway – which DH (the Department of Health), the Cabinet Office and Sage did at the beginning – and you think that there is no effective alternative to herd immunity.

“If you say that, at an overall conceptual level, there’s either A: shape a curve towards herd immunity, or B: try to build your way out of the problem, the entire system in January, February, early March thought that the only plausible approach to this was to shape the curve of herd immunity.

“No one thought it was really practical to build our way out of the problem.

“The fundamental U-turn that we shifted to, was to try and build our way out of it instead of fatalistically accepting it.”

The government was working on the assumption that lockdown was “not possible in a Western country” as Covid struck, Dominic Cummings has revealed, Archie Mitchell reports.

Responding to questioning about the government’s preparedness for a second wave, having mitigated an initial wave with lockdown measures, Mr Cummings said: “There was an assumption across government, across the Cabinet Office, Department of Health and Sage that lockdown was impossible in a Western country.”

Dominic Cummings has lashed out at how the supermodel Caprice Bourret was criticised for calling for Britain’s borders to be closed when Covid struck, Archie Mitchell reports.

“A lot of people, and public health experts mocked her as if she was an idiot,” Mr Cummings told the Covid inquiry.

He was referring to Caprice clashing with medical expert Dr Sarah Jarvis on TV during the pandemic over whether Britain should shut its borders to control the pandemic.

“At that time there was a reaction to a lot of people that closing the borders is racist,” Mr Cummings added.

Dominic Cummings has said there were effectively “no plans, and no plan to get a plan” for vulnerable people during Covid, Archie Mitchell reports.

The former Downing Street chief of staff said the entire question of vulnerable people “was almost entirely appallingly neglected” throughout the pandemic.

And he described the realisation on March 19, 2020, that there was no plan for those who needed to shield from the disease.

Cummings claims Sage scientists “collectively” agreed with the government’s original plan to pursue herd immunity from Covid by September 2020, Archie Mitchell reports.

“Many people from Sage actually gave interviews that week articulating that plan A strategy,” Mr Cummings told the Covid inquiry.

Cummings tells the inquiry he wanted then chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Michael Gove rather than Boris Johnson to deal with the devolved administrations (DAs) in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Setting out why he did not want Mr Johnson in Cobra-style briefings, Mr Cummings said: “If you are having meetings to actually figure out the truth then meetings like that have to be conducted in a very different way.

“They can’t be one of these things with 50 people on a video conference with the DAs.”

Cummings tells the inquiry No 10 Downing Street was not properly equipped to deal with a crisis on the scale of Covid.

After complaining about not having the right staff, Cumming is asked why it was necessary for “your colleagues, your friends” to be brought into government during the crisis.

He said “part of the whole point” of bringing Tom Shinner into government was that “I knew that he had been involved in the Cabinet Office” during Brexit no deal preparations.

Mr Shinner was director of policy and delivery coordination at the Department for Exiting the European Union.

His directorate led DExEU’s work to coordinate the domestic policy implications of exit, across government departments, to seize the opportunities and ensure a smooth process of exit.

No10 Downing Street was “not configured to be the nerve centre of a national crisis like Covid”, Dominic Cummings has told the Covid inquiry, Archie Mitchell reports.

The former chief of staff to Boris Johnson said Downing Street is not fit for the task physically, in terms of the personnel and having the right level of power.

“So at the time it was just completely unsuitable for this, that’s why I tried to change it,” Mr Cummings said.