Michael Rosen says Dominic Cummings evidence is ‘not a soap opera’: ‘This is why we nearly died’

Michael Rosen has hit out at the government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, saying it is why he ‘nearly died’.

The beloved children’s author spent three months in hospital after contracting coronavirus in March, and was ‘probably two or three hours off departing this planet’ when he was rushed to A&E. 

Rosen, 75, said that Dominic Cummings giving evidence to the cross-party health and science and technology committees, chaired by the former Conservative cabinet ministers Greg Clark and Jeremy Hunt, is not a ‘soap opera’.

He tweeted: ‘Those of us who got Covid bad aren’t watching this stuff with Cummings as if it’s a Westminster soap opera. This is why we nearly died and thousands more did.’

His tweet came on the same day that Rosen criticised the government for considering herd immunity, which would have relied on a large percentage of the UK population getting Covid.

Rosen told the Independent: ‘They made a calculation that this virus wasn’t really going to affect people under the age of 70, that the over-70s would get it bad, and people with underlying health problems get it bad.

‘Can you call it “callous” if it’s calculated?’

In Cummings’ evidence, Boris Johnson’s former chief advisor said: ‘The truth is that senior ministers, officials, advisers like me, fell disastrously short of the standards the public has a right to expect of its government in a crisis like this.

‘When the public needed us most, we failed. And I’d like to say to all the families of those who have died unnecessarily, how sorry I am for the mistakes that were made, and my own mistakes.’

He also claimed that the Prime Minister ‘regarded [Covid] as just a scare story in February, and that he compared it to swine flu.

Cummings also suggested that he and other officials kept Johnson away from emergency Cobra meetings in the early days of the crisis, saying: ‘Certainly, the view of various officials inside No 10 was if we have the PM chair Cobra meetings, and he just tells everyone “don’t worry about it, I’m going to get Chris Whitty to inject me live on TV with coronavirus, so everyone realises it’s nothing to be frightened of”, that would not help, actually, serious planning.’

Rosen was admitted to hospital on 23 March last year and was placed in the ICU six days later, spending seven weeks on a ventilator.

The former Children’s Laureate said his respiratory system, along with his liver and kidneys, was ‘conking out’, and doctors gave him a 50/50 chance of survival.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4 last June about how he was feeling after being discharged, he said: ‘The first word I think of to describe myself is feeble. My legs feel very, very feeble.

‘I think of them as cardboard tubes full of porridge. When I ask them to do things they don’t do it. I’ve learnt how to walk with a stick and a bit without a stick.

‘I can hear that my voice is a bit feeble as well and then I get tired very quickly. I’ve also lost some sight from my left eye and [hearing] from my left ear. So I feel a bit lopsided. Feeble and lopsided.’

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