Caprice slams ‘experts’ who ridiculed her call for tougher border controls at start of Covid crisis – after Dominic Cummings admitted she was right and Whitehall fears over ‘racism’ blocked action

Caprice Bourret hailed her vindication today after a bizarre twist in the Covid investigation saw Dominic Cummings admit the government should have listened to her call for tougher borders.

The 90s pin-up welcomed the former No 10 adviser’s recognition that her suggestion to restrict travel and contain the emerging virus had been “correct”.

Cummings told the official inquiry earlier this week that there was a feeling in Whitehall that such action would be seen as “racist”.

Writing for him house magazineCaprice said she was “shut down” and suffered “widespread ridicule” for expressing her opinions on television on March 16, 2020.

“People all over the country ridiculed me for daring to give my opinion on a global health crisis,” the model wrote.

“Everyone tried to discredit my position. I faced incessant trolling on social media for months because my views were considered outlandish and unrealistic.

“It is clear that, in fact, the ‘expert’ doctor on television was wrong and my predictions were correct: the same measures I advocated in 2020 (face masks, travel restrictions and containment) were implemented by the government and helped us contain the pandemic.” .

‘I think my background led many to underestimate me. However, I have always accepted this understatement. Maintaining determination in the face of skepticism is essential and it is a quality that has served me well throughout my career.”

In his testimony, Cummings painted a bleak picture of complacency about the virus in Whitehall and argued that after its arrival in the UK there was a “fatalistic” view that there was no point in trying to stop the spread.

He said the initial advice had been that lockdown was both “impossible” and “crazy” because it would simply result in a worse second wave.

WhatsApps shown at the hearing, many of them laden with expletives, showed the maverick aide warning Boris Johnson on March 12, 2020 that acting too slowly could turn the NHS into a “zombie apocalypse movie”.

But he told the inquiry that the ideal would have been a drastic restriction on travel as soon as the virus was discovered, along with an increase in mass testing. That would have had a “much better outcome,” without the need for blanket restrictions.

Cummings suggested that part of the reason such measures were not implemented was because it was considered “racist” to close borders, pointing to the example of Caprice being derided as an “idiot”.

The former Dancing on Ice star defended face masks and travel restrictions on Jeremy Vine’s show on March 16, 2020.

Cummings said strict border controls on travel from China and the rapid expansion of testing as soon as the virus was identified could have had a “much better” outcome than the national lockdown.

He said there was a “fatalistic” approach within the government that did not foresee trying to create new systems to control the spread of coronavirus.

“My opinion is that what should have happened is that as soon as the first reports came in at the end of December, around New Year’s Eve 2019, we should have immediately closed flights to China, we should have immediately had a very, “A very tough system at airports and borders and there should have been a whole massive testing infrastructure,” he said.

That meant expanding the test and trace system, but also finding the industrial capacity system to manufacture tens of millions of rapid tests.

The combination of “this country, for the first time in history, really controlling its borders and taking them seriously” with test and trace, rapid testing capacity, along with “challenge in humans” vaccine trials, would have been a “very much better”.

It would have been better “not only in terms of deaths, but also in terms of us being able to keep the economy open to a much greater degree than we could.”

Cummings agreed that without an expanded test and trace system, closing borders would not have been enough to combat the spread of coronavirus.

But he said: “It’s half the fact of the matter, but the other half of the fact of the matter is that, if you look at the whole thing in a fatalistic way, what DH (the Department of Health), the Office of the Cabinet and Sage at first, and believes there is no effective alternative to herd immunity.

Caprice (pictured on the red carpet in 2020) said her experience as a model meant she was routinely “underestimated”.

The former Dancing on Ice star defended face masks and travel restrictions on Jeremy Vine’s show on March 16, 2020.

“If you say that, at a general conceptual level, there is an option A: curve towards herd immunity, or B: try to get out of the problem, the entire system in January, February and early March thought that the only plausible approach This was to shape the herd immunity curve.

‘No one thought it was really practical to get out of the problem.

“The fundamental U-turn we made was to try to get out of it rather than accept it fatalistically.”

Pointing to Caprice’s questions of “why don’t we close the borders?” She noted that “many public health experts mocked her as if she were an idiot.”

“That was the prevailing conventional wisdom in the public health system and Caprice’s dismissal was reflected in Number 10 by the public health system,” he said.

“Of course, if a single wave of herd immunity is sought by September… then wasting time on borders was not considered relevant or consistent with such a strategy.”