UK PM was reluctant to impose COVID restrictions as people dying were 'above 80': Ex-aide

Dominic Cummings, ex-aide of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, has claimed that British PM Boris Johnson was reluctant to tighten COVID-19 restrictions as cases surged last autumn because he thought people dying from disease were 'essentially all over 80'. In first television interview after he left job last year amid pandemic, Cummings told BBC that Johnson h denied that National Health Service would be overwhelmed. UK PM told ex-aide in a message, “I no longer buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff. Folks, I think we may need to recalibrate.”

Since levaing  office last year, Cummings has emerged as a staunch critic of Boris Johnson-led government’s response to COVID-19 pandemic. former political viser has also accused British government of being responsible for scores of avoidable deaths due to COVID-19 and has also shared a series of messages from October that are allegedly from Johnson to his aides. 

In one of messages, Cummings claimed that UK PM joked that elderly in country could 'get COVID and live longer' because most of people who succumbed to disease were past average age of life expectancy. As per BBC, Cummings furr claimed that in early days of pandemic, Johnson was willing to keep his weekly face-to-face meetings with UK’s Queen Elizabeth II going even though ex-aide h warned his n-boss that she might lose her life to COVID-19.

Cummings told media outlet that Johnson told officials that he should never have agreed to first COVID-19 lockdown and that he h to convince British leer not to take risks with monarch. "I said, what are you doing, and he said, I'm going to see Queen and I said, what on earth are you talking about? Of course, you can't go and see queen," Cummings said he told Johnson. "And he said, he basically just hn't thought it through."

What does Downing Street say about Cummings’ claims?

In response to series of claims that Cummings me to BBC, Downing Street said that UK Prime Minister h taken 'necessary action to protect lives and livelihoods, guided by best scientific vice' throughout COVID-19 pandemic. Number 10 spokesperson reportedly ded that Johnson’s Conservative government h prevented country’s NHS 'from being overwhelmed through three national lockdowns'.

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