Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser Dominic Cummings has shared calls from scientists for the government to delay lockdown easing over the “surge” in Covid cases linked to the Indian variant.
The ex-Downing Street strategist used social media to point to the warnings from independent experts that lifting curbs now risked a third wave taking hold in the UK.
Prof Christina Pagel, a member of the Independent Sage group, said the alarming rate at which the variant was spreading should delay the next stage of lockdown easing on 17 May.
Mr Cummings shared a separate message from an expert saying the “precautionary principle” should be heeded – even if there was only a small chance Prof Pagel was correct.
Timothy Gowers, a director of research at the University of Cambridge, tweeted: “Even if there’s only a 20 per cent chance that Prof Pagel is right, the cost of another big wave is much higher than the cost of delaying the next stage of the roadmap.”
Mr Cummings is set to answer questions about his dealings with Mr Johnson – and internal clashes over lockdown policy – at a parliamentary inquiry into the handling of the Covid crisis on 26 May.
The strategist is believed to have advised his boss last autumn to bring a “circuit breaker” lockdown to avoid a second wave taking hold in the winter.
Mr Cummings launched a searing attack on the prime minister in a blog post last month – calling for an “urgent parliamentary inquiry into the government’s conduct over the Covid crisis”.
He said he thought Mr Johnson had fallen “far below” the standards of “competence” that the country deserves.
While Downing Street has rejected the idea that the lockdown easing scheduled for Monday would be postponed, ministers have suggested that the plan to lift more restrictions on 21 June could be delayed.
Boris Johnson is due to give a Covid press conference at Downing Street on Friday evening.
Earlier, vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi said new local lockdowns or even national restrictions were still possible.
“We have got to break the cycle of infection, because one of those big tests was infection rates have to be suppressed, and the other big test is variants,” he told LBC on Friday.
The minister added: “If those cause a problem, then the tests will fail. The four tests have to be met for June 21.”
There are 1,313 confirmed cases of the B16172 variant, Public Health England confirmed on Thursday – with the number of infections almost tripling over the past week.
Surge testing is taking place in hotspot areas, with the majority of cases in the north west, mainly in Bolton, Sefton in Merseyside, Blackburn in Lancashire, and London.
Scientists have calling for “surge vaccinations” to be rolled out in pasts of England that have seen a spike in cases linked to the variant. Experts believed that widening the roll-out in certain areas could help to slow down rising transmission rates.
