Late Covid lockdown: How Islington fared in light of Cummings claim
Dominic Cummings, former chief adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, giving evidence to a joint inquiry of the Commons Health and Social Care and Science and Technology committees. - Credit: PA
The UK locked down weeks after it should have, according to former government adviser and Islington resident Dominic Cummings.
Tens of thousands of people died unnecessarily because of the government’s failings over coronavirus and Boris Johnson is “unfit for the job” of Prime Minister, he told a parliamentary committee on Wednesday (May 26).
Mr Cummings was speaking at an evidence session with House of Commons' health and science and technology select committees on the government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In this session he claimed: “I think it is clear that we obviously should have locked down essentially the first week of March at the latest.”
The Gazette has data on the number of cases recorded in the borough every day in March and April last year.
The numbers show that in the week up until that March 7, there were no positive coronavirus cases recorded in Islington.
Between March 7 and March 23 - when lockdown was officially announced - 104 people were recorded as having caught the virus.
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The chart below shows how these numbers unfolded until the end of April 2020.
