UK PM Rishi Sunak reportedly said government should 'let people die', COVID inquiry hears

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, during the coronavirus pandemic, thought that the government should "just let people die" rather than imposea second lockdown, Dominic Cummings, Johnson's most senior adviser during COVID-19, is said to have claimed.

As per a diary entry made by former chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, Cummings made this statement during a meeting on whether to impose a national lockdown or not.

Vallance quoted Cummings in his diary as saying, "Rishi thinks just let people die and that's okay. This all feels like a complete lack of leadership."

A spokesman for Sunak said that the prime minister would set out his stance when he presents evidence to the probe "rather than respond to each one in piecemeal".

Boris Johnson 'bamboozled' by Covid data

The then Prime Minister Boris Johnson was "bamboozled" by the COVID-19 data, a public inquiry, which is being held to review the government's response to the coronavirus pandemic that killed more than 220,000 people in Britain, heard on Monday (Nov 20).

Vallance stated that Johnson at times found it difficult to retain scientific information.

The note made in the diary from May 4, 2020, recalled the meeting with Johnson about schools, where Vallance wrote, "My God, this is complicated. Models will not provide the answer. PM is clearly bamboozled."

Another, written in the same month, said: "PM asking whether we've overdone it on the lethality of this disease. He swings between optimism pessimism, and then this."

Vallance wrote in June that watching Johnson get his head-round stats was hard work. "He finds relative and absolute risk almost impossible to understand," he said.

Vallance said Johnson, who has been criticised at the inquiry by a string of former senior advisers, described the scene as "mad and spooky, we have got to end it".

"Starts challenging numbers and questioning whether they really translate into deaths. Says it is not exponential etc etc," he added, referring to Johnson.

The inquiry is being carried out to review the government's response to the global crisis which claimed the lives of more than 220,000 people in Britain.

(With inputs from the agencies)