Prime Minister Boris Johnson was urged by cabinet secretary Mark Sedwill to tell the British public to hold “chicken pox parties” to catch coronavirus and help the country reach herd immunity, former adviser Dominic Cummings told MPs.

Cummings also said Johnson initially thought the coronavirus pandemic was a "scare story" comparable to swine flu, and wanted to go on television and be injected with the virus by chief medical officer Chris Whitty to prove it was not a major threat.