How the flaws in Dominic Cummings’s Covid strategy have been exposed

The former special adviser might find himself sitting uncomfortably in front of MPs on Wednesday if his maths is put to the test

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In Dominic Cummings’s world, there is, and was, only one way to deal with Covid-19: lock down early, hard and for as long as it takes. He has even tweeted out graphs to prove it.

In the real world, however, beating Covid-19 has proved to be rather less straightforward. As real-life data has superseded the modelling he still cites today, flaws have been exposed in Mr Cummings’s one-size-fits-all strategy.

So, while Mr Cummings is no doubt hoping the much-hyped appearance before MPs will be a chance for all-out attack, he might very quickly find himself on the defensive.

Take, for example, his assertion that 510,000 people would have died if the Government had pursued a “do nothing” strategy of herd immunity, as a document presented to ministers in early March 2020 predicted.

Sweden was confronted with similarly dire warnings at around the same time. According to expert modellers, 90,000 Swedes would die without a lockdown.

In the event, Sweden refused to impose a full lockdown and has recorded 14,300 deaths. Its economy, as a result, has remained far more buoyant than Britain’s, losing less than three per cent of its GDP in 2020, rather than 9.9 per cent in the UK.

Mr Cummings has an answer for this: Sweden’s neighbour, Denmark, fared even better, with fewer deaths and a better economic outcome thanks to its decision to lock down, he claims. The argument in favour of the Swedish approach is, therefore, “nonsense”, he has tweeted.

However, according to the latest revised figures from the financial data firm Statista, Sweden’s GDP shrank by just 2.8 per cent in 2020, while Denmark’s shrank by 3.3 per cent, meaning Sweden actually did better than Denmark.

Sweden’s death toll of 14,366, or 1,396 deaths per million population, is indeed worse than Denmark’s, which has had 2,508 deaths or 431 per million, but that conveniently ignores the fact that Britain, which also had tough lockdowns, has had 1,907 deaths per million, significantly worse than Sweden.

The case for draconian lockdowns is also weakened by the comparisons of California and Florida during the pandemic.

While California imposed lockdown, with bars, restaurants and schools closed, Florida opted for a far more relaxed approach, yet both experienced similar pandemic curves, with near-identical figures for hospitalisations when adjusted for population size.

Both are “sunshine” states, suggesting that climate has not given Florida any natural advantage. California, whose population has a median age 5.5 years younger than Florida’s, should have a built-in advantage.

None of which necessarily means the Government should have thrown caution to the wind and let Covid-19 do its worst, but it does undermine Mr Cummings’ zealous Twitter assertions of: “Fact: evidence clear that fast, hard, effective action best policy for economy AND for reducing deaths/suffering.”

Another of his claims, that there is “confusion” over Sweden because “despite no official lockdown, behaviour changed enormously” is in itself confused. A similar phenomenon was happening in Britain, according to multiple Government sources, before the first lockdown was imposed.

After footage was broadcast on March 19 last year of bodies being driven out of Bergamo in Italy in military trucks, Government data suggested people were staying at home far more. In other words, Britons, like Swedes, were already altering their behaviour based on their own judgement of what was safe.

Another complicating factor is India; before the emergence of the Indian variant of Covid-19, deaths were in decline despite the absence of lockdown measures.

As recently as March, deaths were running at fewer than 100 per day in a country of 1.3 billion people. Overcrowding, poverty and poor hygiene should have made India vulnerable from day one, yet it survived the first year of Covid-19 with only marginally more deaths than the UK, despite having a population 20 times bigger.

As Mr Cummings might be forced to accept, when it comes to stopping coronavirus, mathematical models can only get you so far.