Hancock Herd Immunity Pants On Fire

Two and a half months after the event, the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker are desperately trying to play catch-up and claim that they have some kind of great and new revelation to put before their readers. “It also emerged last night that the Prime Minister allegedly told Italian politicians he wanted to pursue a policy of herd immunity in a bid to control Covid-19” claims the Mail. The problem is that it did not emerge last night.

Still, on the Mail drones. “Professor [Graham] Medley's and Mr Sileri's shocking revelations come from a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary which airs tonight at 9pm. In response to the documentary the Government insisted it has 'taken the right steps at the right time' and said the public should avoid 'accepting the claims of a rushed documentary’”.

It still didn’t emerge last night, but was reported by Bloomberg in April, their article “How The Alarm Went Off Too Late in Britain’s Virus Response” clearly dated April 24. The actions of Matt Hancock come under the spotlight. And he emerges with no credit at all.

The Bloomberg report tells “The next day [March 13], [Patrick] Vallance provoked an outcry by suggesting the government’s aim was to acquire ‘some degree of herd immunity,’ in which as much as 60% of the population - 40 million people - would become infected. The government now insists herd immunity was never official policy, but on the same day that Vallance made his explosive remark, Hancock’s actions suggested otherwise”. Vallance was not going off-piste, as that report shows.

“The health secretary dialled into a conference call for Group of Seven countries as governments across the world sought to coordinate their responses and share their experiences. Hancock asked the Italian representative if Italy was also working on a herd immunity plan”. Note the use of “also”; quite the giveaway.

“The Italian representative was blunt: Allowing the virus to run riot would result in thousands of excess deaths and there was way too much uncertainty about the nature of the virus to be sure that such a gamble would even work. Hancock was shocked. The damage was done. Medical experts accused Johnson of failing to act soon enough”.

From that account, it is clear that the UK was, initially at least, working on a “herd immunity” strategy. Nonetheless, Hancock then went on The Andy Marr Show™ two days later and vehemently denied the “herd immunity” claim. In response to Marr’s question “Sir Patrick Vallance, the Chief Scientific Advisor, said on Thursday that you want some immunity in the population, we need to have immunity to protect ourselves from this in the future and I think a lot of people can understand that, but the question is, is allowing this to spread to achieve herd immunity in any way government policy?” he was unequivocal.

“Herd immunity is not our policy. It’s not our goal”. That wasn’t what he said on that conference call two days earlier. The Bloomberg report, talking of “a herd immunity plan”, and Vallance talking of acquiring “some degree of herd immunity”, suggest that Hancock and his pals experienced a sudden Damascene conversion after that conference call. Either that, or he winged it on the Marr Show. Just as the Government is winging it now.

Spain recorded no Covid-19 deaths yesterday. The UK recorded 324. And it took ten days from that conference call for Britain to be locked down. We are led by clueless clowns.

Enjoy your visit to Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by adding to its Just Giving page at

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/zelostreet6