Dominic Cummings edited an old blog to add a reference to coronaviruses

Internet archive services and Cummings’ own sitemap show a post published in March 2019 was edited last month to add a section on the risk of a coronavirus pandemic.

By Sarah Manavis

LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 26: Chief Advisor to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings leaves his home on May 26, 2020 in London, England. On March 31st 2020 Downing Street confirmed to journalists that Dominic Cummings, senior advisor to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, was self-isolating with COVID-19 symptoms at his home in North London. Durham police have confirmed that he was actually hundreds of miles away at his parent's house in the city having travelled with his wife and young son. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images,)

UPDATE: This piece has been updated to include that Downing Street has confirmed the blog was retroactively edited.

A post on Dominic Cummings’s personal blog from March 2019 was edited in April 2020 to add a reference to coronaviruses, Downing Street has confirmed this afternoon.

Cummings himself drew attention this particular blog yesterday, during a press conference in which he attempted to explain trips he made to his father’s property in Durham during the lockdown period.

“For years, I have warned of the dangers of pandemics,” said Cummings in a prepared statement. “Last year I wrote about the possible threat of coronaviruses and the urgent need for planning.”

However, the one mention of coronaviruses on Cummings’s blog has been shown by an internet archiving service to have been added on 14 April this year.

I was just told about a wonderful feature of @waybackmachine by @MarkGraham: Changes.

You can see exactly what was changed between April and May here:https://t.co/LZG0RkVyfn pic.twitter.com/Icy2Se33c0

Give a gift subscription to the New Statesman this Christmas from just £49

Subscribe

— ⬡ Jens Wiechers (@jwiechers) May 25, 2020

The blog post quotes research published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists which found that secure bio-labs routinely make errors “which could cause a global pandemic”. As recently as 9 April 2020, internet archival service The Wayback Machine shows no mention of previous coronaviruses in the piece.

On 3 May 2020, however, The Wayback Machine shows a section of Cummings’ blog has been added that includes a reference to the SARS coronavirus first identified in 2002.

The sitemap of Cummings’s blog says this edit was made at 20:55 on 14 April 2020. Cummings attended a government briefing in Downing Street on the same day.