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LONDON â Dominic Cummings, Prime Minister Boris Johnsonâs former top adviser, accused government on Wednesday of failing the British public in its early response to the coronavirus pandemic, apologizing to the families of those âwho died unnecessarily.â
After leaving Johnsonâs team late last year, Cummings has become one of his former bossâs most vocal critics over how the prime minister led his team in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, describing it as âcatastrophic.â
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Try refreshing your browser, or We re going to kill thousandsâ: Former adviser criticizes Boris Johnson over COVID response Back to video
Matt Hancock to make two Covid announcements amid claims he performed disastrously during pandemic
The Health Secretary will speak in the Commons before leading a Government press conference
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The Health Secretary will face MPs on Thursday over allegations made by former senior No 10 aide Dominic Cummings that he lied to colleagues and performed disastrously during the Covid pandemic.
Dominic Cummings: how the UK ignored evidence that the virus is airborne
The Conversation
28 May 2021, 04:43 GMT+10 I think we are absolutely fucked. I think this country is heading for disaster. I think we re going to kill thousands of people. According to Dominic Cummings, those were the words spoken by the then deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara on March 13 2020 when she realised that the UK had no plan for dealing with the unfolding COVID crisis.
And it s not over yet. The UK s tally of COVID-19 cases - undoubtedly an underestimate - is now 4.5 million, with over 127,000 COVID deaths. Between half and 1 million people, including 122,000 healthcare workers and 114,000 teachers - give or take a few tens of thousands - remain too sick to work full time. Highly contagious mutant variants, which entered the country recently through ineffective border controls, are spreading exponentially, causing new local outbreaks. Effective prevention measures, such as mask mandates in