The Cambridge professor whose argument against a herd immunity strategy helped trigger England’s first lockdown has voiced concerns about the risks of easing restrictions next month. Prof Sir Tim Gowers sent Dominic Cummings a five-page document warning of the need to “move urgently to extreme containment measures” in March last year. Asked about the next step in lockdown-easing, Gowers said he did not necessarily believe the lockdown easing plans were at risk, but urged caution. Until this point, Cummings said, the government had been following a strategy of herd immunity – allowing people to catch Covid to boost the number with antibodies – though this is denied. Meanwhile, Gowers said he could precisely date the moment at which he realised that a herd immunity policy was “disastrously wrong”.

Source: The Guardian May 28, 2021 16:00 UTC