“His mentor Trump had suggested that injection of bleach could kill Covid."
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been brutally mocked after it emerged that he asked top scientists during the height of the Covid pandemic whether people could kill Covid by using a “special hair dryer” up their nose.
His former aide Dominic Cummings made the claim when giving evidence to the Covid inquiry, which will once more show just how disgraceful Johnson’s out of touch premiership was during the pandemic.
Cummings alleges that Johnson shared a video clip of ‘a guy blowing a special hair dryer up his nose ‘to kill Covid’, in a WhatsApp group which included Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific advsior and Sir Chris Whitty, England’s Chief Medical Officer, and asked them what they thought of the clip.
The statement from Cummings does not indicate what response, if any, was given.
The inquiry has also revealed that Vallance, believed Johnson was “obsessed with old people accepting their fate”, while Cummings alleged that Johnson was fixated on not upsetting the media.
His sentiments were echoed by Johnson’s former communications chief Lee Cain, who told the Covid inquiry earlier in the week that Johnson was more interested in avoiding a backlash from right-wing papers like the Daily Telegraph, than being guided by the scientific evidence.
The news that Johnson asked if a hair dryer could kill Covid, led to him being mocked online.
LFF columnist Prem Sikka tweeted: “Covid Inquiry: Eton/Oxford educated Boris Johnson asked whether Covid could be killed by blowing hairdryer up a nose.
“His mentor Trump had suggested that injection of bleach could kill Covid.
“Clear evidence that power/money rots brain and common sense.”
Another social media user wrote: “Hair dryer up the nose? Injecting bleach? Seriously, the pandemic couldn’t have hit at a worst time with Boris Johnson and Donald Trump running the show in the UK and US.”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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