Former British adviser Boris Johnson's former adviser Dominic Cummings has apologized many times when asked on Wednesday about Britain's corona strategy in Parliament.

Cummings, who has been strongly critical of the handling of the pandemic since he was fired from his post as prime minister's adviser last autumn, said he should have done more to make the government understand the seriousness.

He then went on to attack Boris Johnson and other ministers.

According to Cummings, the government's starting point in February and early March 2020 was that the pandemic primarily threatened the economy, not public health, and that border controls would not be introduced because they threatened tourism.

The government also did not believe that it would be possible to start vaccinating in 2020, which Cummings believes was wrong.

Pressed on why he did not do more

The British government assumed that the public would not accept a lockdown and chose a strategy they hoped would provide a single high peak over one with two peaks where the other would come during the winter, Cummings said.

According to him, the theory was that with a peak one could have herd immunity in September 2020, with two peaks it would happen in January 2021. But a lockdown should have been introduced already the first week in March, says Cummings.

Parliament pressed the former adviser hard on why he, who had so much power in the government and direct line to Boris Johnson, did not do more, if he understood early on how big the crisis would be.

Cummings apologized for his failure to work for a different strategy.

Among other things, he failed to double-check the Minister of Health's plans, he said remorsefully.

Low confidence

Cummings was also pressured to edit his blog posts to make it look like he expected the scale of the pandemic, according to Parliament.

According to Cummings, he only elaborated on a quote about the origin of the virus. 

The British public's confidence in Cummings is low, says SVT's correspondent Anna-Maja Persson. Last year, Cummings was heavily criticized for violating the restrictions himself by traveling domestically when the British were advised against this and also at the same time as he showed symptoms of covid-19.