Dominic Cummings: Health secretary's 'stupid' targets delayed building UK test and trace system to combat COVID
- Reference: 1622104222
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/05/27/health_secretarys_targets_delayed_the/
- Source link:
Having been persuaded in [1]March 2020 by a mathematician, an AI expert and the founder of Google’s Deep Mind to try to get UK government to abandon its herd immunity strategy, Dominic Cummings, the former Brexit master-mind and Boris Johnson's spin doctor, said the need for a national test and trace system became obvious.
“You've got to deal with the fundamental argument that you've got a second wave coming in the autumn, so of course, then we were going to have to build a test, track and trace system from essentially Ground Zero,” Cummings yesterday told a meeting of Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee and Health and Social Care Committee.
[2]Google employee helped UK government switch from disastrous COVID-19 strategy, according to Dominic Cummings
[3]Conflicting messaging overshadows NHS Digital's attempts to inform public about patient data slurp
[4]Staying in the UK this summer? Good news: Temples of IT nerdery are reopening
[5]NHS App gets go-ahead for vaccine passport use despite protest from privacy groups
Challenged by MPs as to why it took two months to set up the test and trace system, Cumming said: “In lots of ways the whole core of government fundamentally fell apart,” when the prime minister went into hospital in April.
Cummings said during that time, Health Secretary Matt Hancock decided to push ahead with his own test and trace system.
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“In my opinion, disastrously, the Secretary of State had made, while the prime minister was on his near deathbed, this pledge to do 100,000 [tests per day] by the end of April. Now, this was really an incredibly stupid thing to do because we'd already had that goal internally, we'd already had conversations 10 days earlier to say, we should be ramping up testing… and it shouldn't just be 100,000, we should be heading for a million tests a day or more, but that means building the kind of architecture and foundations to do all this properly,” Cummings said.
[We] agreed we had... to take testing away from Hancock and put it in a separate agency, so ... Hancock couldn't interfere with it, theoretically
Cummings was himself stricken with coronavirus during this period, famously [9]"testing his vision" at Barnard Castle . He said he returned on 13th April and was getting calls, as was Number 10, to say that Hancock had been directing proceedings to hit his "stupid target by the end of the month.
“We had half the government with me in number 10, calling around frantically saying don't do what Hancock says, build the thing properly. We had Hancock calling them all saying, ‘Down tools on this… so that I can hit my target’. Now, in my opinion, he should have been fired for that thing alone,” Cummings said.
The PM’s former advisor declared that the whole of April was then disrupted because different parts of government tried to operate in different ways.
“That was one of the reasons why the cabinet secretary and I agreed that we had, essentially, to take testing away from Hancock and put it in a separate agency, so they could say, here's a separate person responsible directly to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Secretary, [and] Hancock couldn't interfere with it, theoretically,” Cummings said.
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In early May, Baroness Dido Harding, [11]christened the queen of carnage for her hacking-marred tenure at the helm of TalkTalk , was appointed to lead the NHS Test and Trace service and given a budget of up to £37bn.
The UK’s test and trace system eventually launched [12]in May with a glitchy website . It was considered [13]bad value for money by MPs. The development of an associated smartphone app was also beset with delays, with the official [14]team forced into a U-turn on its approach to the technology, eventually adopting a system first proposed by Apple and Google.
There was no earlier urgency for the strategy in February because, with the herd immunity strategy, more people would get the disease than would be feasible to test and trace, Cummings had said earlier [15]yesterday .
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The former advisor made pointed criticism of Hancock earlier in the meeting, accusing the health secretary of lying during government meetings.
The health secretary is due to appear before the committee, presumably to put forward his version of events. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/26/google_employee_helped_uk_government/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/26/google_employee_helped_uk_government/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/24/nhs_digital_gp_data_store/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/17/diy_geek_guide/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/11/nhs_app_vaccine_passport_england/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YK9tuDt6zR9F2YgoEb@CPQAAAMk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YK9tuDt6zR9F2YgoEb@CPQAAAMk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YK9tuDt6zR9F2YgoEb@CPQAAAMk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/05/passwords_ptp_study_vision_dominic_cummings/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YK9tuDt6zR9F2YgoEb@CPQAAAMk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2015/10/27/talktalk_incident_management_review/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/28/england_covid19_contact_tracing_launch_shambles/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/10/pac_test_and_trace/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/18/uk_ditches_central_database_model/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/26/google_employee_helped_uk_government/
[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YK9tuDt6zR9F2YgoEb@CPQAAAMk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[17] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Dominic Cummings cannot escape that he was instrumental in creating the shit show he described. Does he expect people to forget that? This is self condemnation.
Does he expect anyone to trust a word he says given his history?
Does he expect anyone to trust a word he says given his history?
I would say, yes, I believe him. He's a liar (and there are other nouns that describe him more broadly), and likely a law-breaker and it is _quite possible_ that he either made up some of his claims, or at least, coloured them. But yes, I believe that as a vindictive (...), he wants a revenge. That said, I think he missed the boat. Years ago, his Great-Great-Great (....) Predecessor said 'there's no better day to bury bad news' and people feigned horror at such callous attitude by the gov spin-doctor, feigned it for as long as a WEEK! These days, 'er... ok, shrug'.
Politicians are unaccountable for their failures. Not accountable politically, and not accountable legally. But this is old news, what's more important is that they know it very well, and they take full advantage.
Nope, no vested interest at all...
"Having been persuaded in March 2020 by a mathematician, an AI expert and the founder of Google’s Deep Mind... ...the need for a national test and trace system became obvious"
"Test" (track) and trace is Google's wet dream come true - a completely legal remit to monitor people's movements in relation to each other through devices that are already phoning home with their browsing, shopping and communication habits. Let's not forget that they've already been [1]illegally using NHS data ...
[1] https://news.sky.com/story/nhs-patient-data-given-to-google-illegally-10935315
Colour me surprised.
Anyone that shines a light on the incompetent liying half-wit that is Matt Hancock goes up in my estimation, even Cummings. We've seen Hancock obviously lie time after time, we've seen him utterly demolished on political TV programs, we even seen him pathetically pretend to cry on national television when the vaccination programme started (I still struggle to watch that, makes me squirm with embarrassment). Now we see that hancock is single-handedly responsible for old people being sent back to care homes to pass on covid to other residents, after assuring the rest of government that this wouldn't happen, and resulting in many thousands of premature deaths. He shouldn't just be sacked, he should be jailed!
I will bet the former Prime Ministerial string puller utters not one word to implicate himself as a part of the covid cluckfuster.
It sounds like a case of sour grapes to me, I just hope that this hearing he disappears back into the woodwork never to be heard of again.
"I will bet the former Prime Ministerial string puller utters not one word to implicate himself as a part of the covid cluckfuster"
Well he did actually say that he was included in the group that had utterly let the country down, and also gave an explicit apology for that, so it's better than anyone else has managed. Still wouldn't trust him though :-)
The expression...
"When thieves fall out..." comes to mind, right now...
I can't possibly say why...
There's going to be some interesting mud-slinging going on over the UK's handling of COVID.
Unfortunately I doubt anything useful will happen as a result.
"Unfortunately I doubt anything useful will happen as a result."
You want results from a British government??? Not in this century!
You've got to deal with the fundamental argument that
“But he has nothing at all on!” at last cried out all the people. The Emperor was upset, for he knew that the people were right. However, he thought the procession must go on now! The lords of the bedchamber took greater pains than ever, to appear holding up a train, although, in reality, there was no train to hold, and the Emperor walked on in his underwear.