![]() ![]() Johnson’s media backers were feting him then for winning the “Get Brexit Done” election, and his private life, since criticised by some as a distraction, was portrayed as a cause for national rejoicing when on 29 February he and Carrie Symonds announced their engagement. Viewed from today’s unimaginably changed perspective, this year’s pre-crisis months can seem like a parallel world. He emphasised that one alarming estimate in that paper was not new: that under the “mitigation scenario”, which apparently envisaged herd immunity as one outcome, and included measures then being considered by the government, 250,000 people would die. Prof Neil Ferguson, the lead scientist on the Covid-19 response team at Imperial College London, whose advice paper of 16 March is credited with convincing the government to change course, responded extensively to questions from the Guardian for this article. There are profound questions to be answered, about why Johnson’s government stood alone among the countries of the world, pursuing that herd immunity approach, and why, when they realised stricter measures were needed, the lockdown was still delayed. All are wary of being wise in hindsight, and sympathetic to ministers who took decisions they felt were right at the time.īut with Covid-19 having spread virulently, particularly during those first three weeks of March, more than 21,000 people have now died in hospitals alone and Britain is predicted to be possibly the worst affected country in Europe. Some said that while they had concerns, they were holding back some of their criticism because they did not want to damage public trust in government at such a delicate time. Many asked not to be named, because they were not authorised to speak publicly. The Guardian’s account of the government’s response to the crisis is based on interviews with sources in or close to Downing Street, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Cabinet Office, Cobra and Sage, as well as other advisers and experts. But they do not understand how the government can claim that herd immunity was not part of its plan. Well-placed government sources said on the strictest reading of the word “policy” that may be true. ![]() The health secretary, Matt Hancock, supported by Downing Street, has persistently denied that attaining herd immunity, by allowing the disease to infect most people, was ever a policy, goal, strategy or even “part of the plan”. I strongly believe that if the government had acted more quickly we wouldn’t have lost so many lives, and my wife could be here today.” “During those weeks, the virus was allowed to spread,” he says. The nurse died on 8 April after contracting coronavirus. Sazuze, who served 10 years in the British army before studying to be a nurse himself, says he “never liked that herd immunity idea”.Įlsie Sazuze. That week, although more physical distancing had been advised by Johnson, normal life mostly continued until the compulsory lockdown pubs, restaurants and gyms stayed open, as did schools, until Friday 20 March. Ken believes she became infected sometime in that eerie, frightening week after Monday 16 March, when Boris Johnson’s government reconsidered its previous light-touch approach, which had envisaged 60% of the population – 40 million people – would become infected, and while many would die, the majority would recover and attain “herd immunity”. Elsie died on 8 April, on a ventilator, in Birmingham’s Good Hope hospital. His wife, Elsie, was 44, a much-loved nurse, mother to their children, Anna, 16, and Andrew, 22 she was his soulmate and best friend, a “genuine person,” he says. I n common with the many thousands of people whose lives have suddenly been devastated by Covid-19, Ken Sazuze cannot know exactly when the coronavirus landed on his family and wreaked its terrible damage. ![]()
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