The inquiry earlier went through an email sent on 11 March 2020 by Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson's most senior advisor at the time.

In it, Cummings writes about the daily Covid meetings he wanted at No 10 and who he thought should attend.

He suggests that he or Lee Cain, the former Downing Street director of communications we heard from earlier in the inquiry, chair the meeting.

In an email response, Sedwill says "we're not running a dictatorship here" and Johnson is not taking "nationally significant decisions" without cabinet ministers or experts involved.

Sedwill says it was about making sure decisions were taken with the right input, adding he had forgotten writing this email but it showed his view of collective government.

Image source, Covid inquiry

A little more on that apology from Mark Sedwill, who was addressing the families of coronavirus victims about a suggestion he made that chickenpox-style parties could be held early in the pandemic.

He told the inquiry:

Mark Sedwill has apologised for the remarks he made in 2020 about chickenpox parties, which you can read more on here.

He says these were private exchanges and he never expected them to become public - but acknowledges the distress they caused.

"I apologise for that," he says, adding he was not the one who made the messages public.

Earlier in the inquiry, the PM's then-closest adviser Dominic Cummings said Sedwill made the comments in a meeting in March.

In a WhatsApp message, Cummings alleged that Sedwill had said: "Prime minister, you should go on TV tomorrow and explain the herd immunity plan and that it is like the old chicken pox parties. We need people to get this disease because that's how we get herd immunity by September."

But Cummings said he told him not to use the analogy, which was "not right", as - according to data expert Ben Warner - Covid was "spreading exponentially and killing hundreds of thousands of people".

Image source, Covid inquiry

Keith, the inquiry lawyer, asks what Boris Johnson's overall attitude towards the virus was, how seriously he took it and whether he played down its potential impact or the effect government could have on mitigating its spread.

Sedwill says the former prime minister is an optimistic person, and that "optimism bias", which Keith referred to earlier, probably did reflect his view of Covid at this point in time.

Mark Sedwill is asked about the strategy of “squashing the sombrero”, which is a phrase that has come up frequently during this inquiry and refers to flattening the peak of the virus to reduce pressure on services.

Sedwill says this was about pushing the peak of the first wave of the outbreak into the summer, when the conditions for controlling the disease would be more favourable.

The inquiry’s lawyer asks again: “The fatal sombero would still be there, it would only be squashed?”

"Indeed," Sedwill says. He says the advice was not that the virus could be stopped, but “its spread could only be managed”.

There was optimism bias in government?

Sedwill says he can “understand how non-experts, not familiar with exponential movement, might have misunderstood the pace at which the virus was moving”.

The inquiry is looking at a paper sent to Boris Johnson in late February 2020, by the head of the civic contingency secretariat Catherine Hammond.

The paper said it looked increasingly likely Covid would become a global pandemic.

Image source, Covid inquiry

The lawyer says "quite detailed information is given about what the reasonable worst case scenario is. And the detail of that information makes absolutely plain that whilst it is still described as 'the reasonable worst case scenario', this is what is going to happen".

Sedwill replies: "I don't think it was completely clear that this was what was going to happen at that point".

He says there was also a conversation between the chief scientific adviser and the health secretary at the time which put the probability of the reasonable worst case scenario happening at 20%.

Confused thinking in Whitehall in February 2020published at 11:51 Greenwich Mean Time 8 November 2023

11:51 GMT 8 November 2023

Hugh Pym
Health editor

It's worth highlighting a moment a little earlier when the inquiry was discussing an emergency Cobra meeting from late January.

The meeting discussed two scenarios – either the virus being kept in China or a pandemic affecting the UK.

The inquiry's lawyer pressed Sedwill on why the latter possibility was not taken more seriously.

Sedwill responded that, in meetings at the time, it had always been put as a “reasonable worst case scenario” with hundreds of thousands of deaths - but with a suggestion this was unlikely.

Significantly, the inquiry chair Baroness Hallett asked why other scenarios still with a “lot of unnecessary deaths” were not considered.

Sedwill acknowledged that, with hindsight, there should have been more focus on a range of possibilities.

The exchange highlights again confused thinking in Whitehall at the time and the apparent lack of progress in February 2020.

Joshua Nevett
Politics reporter

Image source, PA Media

We've just returned from a short break, and Mark Sedwill is still giving evidence to the inquiry. He was the cabinet secretary through the beginning of the pandemic, up until September 2020.

Cabinet secretary is the very top job in the civil service.

Sat at the prime minister’s side at every cabinet meeting, these senior officials are tasked with ensuring government policy is put into action and managing other high-level civil servants.

Cabinet secretaries are also the prime minister’s chief adviser - someone who has the power to find out what is really going on inside the government machine and to decide what should be reported back to the PM.

So it’s an influential role.

Image source, PA Media

But despite the power they wield, cabinet secretaries, unlike ministers, usually stay behind the scenes and are prevented from commenting publicly by civil service impartiality.

However, having been brought up repeatedly during the Covid inquiry, the current cabinet secretary, Simon Case, has found it difficult to keep a low profile.

Pete Saull
Political correspondent

One of the points yet to be raised this morning is the allegation that Mark Sedwill suggested holding “chickenpox parties” in the very early stages of the pandemic.

That is, deliberately getting groups of people together with the aim of becoming infected with Covid, as has been done with chickenpox (a far milder disease) in the past.

At the time, many in government thought the best policy was to let as many people as possible catch the virus and gain immunity.

But it quickly became clear that such a strategy would lead to the NHS being overwhelmed, with many thousands of people dying - hence the decision to lock down the country.

It’s also been claimed that Sedwill was involved in a suggestion that Boris Johnson inject himself with Covid live on television to show that the virus wasn’t serious.

Yesterday at the inquiry, the then Downing Street chief of staff, Eddie Lister, said the injection idea was indeed put forward.

Lister - who’s a close ally of the former prime minister - described the comment as "unfortunate".

We had a rare intervention there from Baroness Hallett, who is chairing the inquiry.

She asks Mark Sedwill why there was such a focus on the worst case scenario of Covid, when hundreds of thousands of people had already died from the virus.

Hallett asks whether government recognised a bad scenario was already playing out.

Sedwill says he largely acknowledges what she is saying and agrees that in hindsight too much emphasis was placed on the worst case scenario - rather than what actually would happen in the UK.

The inquiry's lawyer shows notes from a cabinet meeting on 6 February 2020.

Then-prime minister Boris Johnson is quoted as saying it was important for the government to “remain measured in its response”.

The notes summarising Johnson’s comments say: “Often the economic damage of a crisis came from political overreaction rather than the problem itself.”

Was the government underplaying the threat from the virus, Mark Sedwill is asked, to which he says the cabinet was receiving advice that the worst-case scenario was unlikely, and Johnson was reflecting that guidance in his remarks.

The inquiry is now being shown a screenshot of a message exchange between Sedwill and Chris Wormald, the most senior civil servant at the Department of Health, from early February 2020.

The pair were discussing data models showing the potential number of deaths caused by Covid.

In the message exchange, Sedwill refers to "stupid decisions" nearly being taken in an "informal meeting".

Image source, Covid inquiry

Sedwill says he cannot remember what he meant by "stupid decisions" but that his concern was around the number of deaths by Covid rising so sharply in such a short amount of time.

"If numbers kept moving around, how much confidence could we have in what we were being told?" Sedwill says.

Pressed again on what the "stupid decisions" were, Sedwill says he genuinely cannot remember - but the concern was with the validity of the information they were being given.

Jim Reed
Health reporter

The top civil servant during the start of the pandemic, Mark Sedwill, is being asked about the very early stages of Covid, and whether the right plans were in place when it first emerged in China.

This was also the subject of an earlier part of the inquiry, and some of the main themes are being picked over again today.

In the first half of February 2020, cabinet were told that the early response would be based on a "flu paradigm".

That is the assumption that, under plans drawn up to deal with an influenza pandemic, the spread of a new virus like Covid would be inevitable.

This was the "genesis" of the idea of herd immunity, the inquiry was told.

Other places, like South Korea and Taiwan, took a different approach: Clamping down on early cases and trying to stop the disease from taking hold.

The inquiry's lawyer continues to quiz Sedwill on pandemic planning.

He asks, in hindsight, “do you think the cabinet was given - in those meetings in February - a proper understanding of the seriousness of the crisis?”

Sedwill replies that there was a “good explanation of the nature of the virus at a high level” in February.

But he says: “There was an assurance that plans were in place to manage it”.

He adds: “In hindsight, those plans should have been interrogated more carefully by me and at the cabinet level.”

In late January 2020, two scenarios were discussed in an emergency Cobra meeting, the inquiry hears.

One looked at the possibility of the virus being contained to China, and one looked at if it spread outside of China.

Lawyer Hugo Keith asks what Sedwill - then the top civil servant - knew at the time about the UK's preparedness for a pandemic.

Sedwill says he didn't have a thorough knowledge of this as he wasn't responsible for it - but he was aware of the operational needs.

Sedwill says that by the February, his understanding was it might be possible to manage Covid, but that it would likely spread through the British public as it did.

Turning to January 2020, Sedwill said he had doubts when he was was initially asked to convene a Cobra meeting.

Cobra meetings are the government's emergency response meetings and include senior ministers, civil servants and other relevant officials.

Sedwill explains that "there had been a habit... of Cobras being convened for communications purposes rather than primarily to make decisions that couldn't be made elsewhere".

He continues to say that he was confident the "very experienced team there had all the authority they needed in order to make a substantive decisions" and that's why he thought a Cobra for communications purposes "wasn't wise".

When Hugo Keith, the inquiry lawyer, asks Sedwill if by "communications purposes" he means he was concerned that a Cobra meeting was being called to make a splash about the role of the Department of Health, Sedwill replies that this is a "fair summary of his thinking".

The inquiry lawyer, Hugo Keith, asks Mark Sedwill if Boris Johnson’s government was experienced when it took office in 2019.

He says there were some experienced ministers, naming Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, and Matt Hancock, the former health secretary.

But he describes the government as “more like an opposition party coming into power after a general election” because of “the nature of the Brexit process”.

He says there was a “change of personalities” when Johnson became PM.

For context: Johnson filled his government with many MPs who were passionate supporters of leaving the European Union.

Pete Saull
Political correspondent

The early questioning has focused on decision-making processes in government.

Mark Sedwill confirmed that the cabinet - which is made up of elected politicians - is supposed to be the ultimate decision-making body.

Sedwill insisted that cabinet ministers made many of the “key” decisions in the early stages of the pandemic but weren’t as “fully participative” as they should have been.

Others have suggested that the cabinet was sidelined - with too much power in the hands of unelected advisers, particularly Dominic Cummings.

As a result, some have argued that too few perspectives were heard and mistakes were made as a result.

Boris Johnson is certainly not the first prime minister to face criticism for not properly involving cabinet ministers.

But given the seriousness of the decisions being taken - and the effect those decisions had on millions - the issue is likely to play a key part in the inquiry’s conclusions.

Keith, the inquiry lawyer, is now asking Sedwill about how decisions were being made in government.

Sedwill says he had concerns cabinet was not as "fully participative" in the decision-making process as it should have been, and he raised this with former prime minister Boris Johnson.

The two then go on to discuss Spads - special advisors.

Sedwill says the role of special advisor has existed since the time of Lloyd-George over 100 years ago, but there are now more of them and they are more prevalent across government.

He says they are politically aligned with the secretary of state they are appointed to, and with the government of the day.

While Mark Sedwill takes the inquiry lawyer through the inner workings of government, let's remind ourselves of how long the entire inquiry's due to last.

In short, it has no formal deadline but is due to hold public hearings until 2026.

Its work will be split into six parts with the first looking at resilience, preparedness, core UK decision-making, political governance and the impact of Covid-19 on the NHS.

Then, with hearings in 2024 and 2025, the inquiry will look at the UK care sector, vaccines, anti-viral treatment and government procurement.

Public hearings will be held in all four UK nations. It's worth noting Scotland is holding a separate inquiry.