Notes from the former chief scientist Sir Patrick Vallance in August 2020: [Boris Johnson was] obsessed with older people accepting their fate and letting the young get on with life and the economy going. Quite bonkers set of exchanges.”
In December 2020, Vallance noted: “Numbers are going up & up. PM told he has been acting early and the public are with him (but his party is not). He says his party ‘thinks the whole thing is pathetic and Covid is just Nature’s way of dealing with old people – and I am not entirely sure I disagree with them. A lot of moderate people think it is a bit too much.’ Wants to rely on polling. Then he says, ‘We should move things to Tier 3 now.”
Vallance continued: “Cabinet. Agreed that things need to be scaled back. Christmas must be smaller, shorter & local … Chief whip says ‘I think we should let the old people get it & protect others’. PM says ‘a lot of my backbenchers think that & I must say I agree with them’ … He says ‘let’s put Berkshire into Tier 3 & then I can just travel there’. Before Cabinet I said to Gove ‘you did well not to say I told you so re putting London into Tier 3’. He grins.”
Johnson told Lee Cain, his director of communications, via WhatsApp in October 2020: “Jeeez. I must say I have been slightly rocked by some of the data on covid fatalities. The median 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 into hospital (4 per cent) and of those virtually all survive. And I no longer buy all this nhs overwhelmed stuff. Folks I think we may need to recalibrate. There are max 3m in this country aged over 80”.
Good old Boris.
In December 2020, Vallance noted: “Numbers are going up & up. PM told he has been acting early and the public are with him (but his party is not). He says his party ‘thinks the whole thing is pathetic and Covid is just Nature’s way of dealing with old people – and I am not entirely sure I disagree with them. A lot of moderate people think it is a bit too much.’ Wants to rely on polling. Then he says, ‘We should move things to Tier 3 now.”
Vallance continued: “Cabinet. Agreed that things need to be scaled back. Christmas must be smaller, shorter & local … Chief whip says ‘I think we should let the old people get it & protect others’. PM says ‘a lot of my backbenchers think that & I must say I agree with them’ … He says ‘let’s put Berkshire into Tier 3 & then I can just travel there’. Before Cabinet I said to Gove ‘you did well not to say I told you so re putting London into Tier 3’. He grins.”
Johnson told Lee Cain, his director of communications, via WhatsApp in October 2020: “Jeeez. I must say I have been slightly rocked by some of the data on covid fatalities. The median 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 into hospital (4 per cent) and of those virtually all survive. And I no longer buy all this nhs overwhelmed stuff. Folks I think we may need to recalibrate. There are max 3m in this country aged over 80”.
Good old Boris.
