‘I won’t be Boris Johnson’s guinea pig,’ says cancer survivor who fled London amid anger at UK response

Gwenael Pilorget fears contested herd immunity plan and says Boris Johnson is like ‘Titanic captain’

A cancer survivor who fled London for his native France has said he refuses “to be Boris Johnson’s guinea pig” amid anger at the government’s coronavirus response.

Gwenael Pilorget said a herd immunity strategy would put him at risk and he feared being admitted to an “overwhelmed” NHS hospital as an emergency case were he to test positive for Covid-19.

The 31-year-old, who has been working in London for more than three years, described the prime minister as the “Titanic captain”.

With a low immune system already, following treatment for leukaemia, he said he could not afford to take any chances, adding: “I don’t want to be Boris Johnson’s guinea pig.”

England’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said last week that a herd immunity approach – where a large portion of the public are exposed to the disease – could be beneficial, as Mr Johnson warned: “Many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time.”

“Our aim is to try and reduce the peak, broaden the peak, not suppress it completely,” Sir Patrick told the BBC’s Today on Friday.

“Also, because the vast majority of people get a mild illness, to build up some kind of herd immunity so more people are immune to this disease and we reduce the transmission. At the same time we protect those who are most vulnerable to it.”

Health secretary Matt Hancock later denied that was the government’s policy, describing herd immunity as a “scientific concept, not a goal or strategy”.

The approach had been criticised by a group of scientists from UK universities, who said it risks “many more lives than necessary”, and was called into question by the World Health Organisation.

The prime minister has since urged citizens to work from home, avoid all non-essential contact and travel, and has told over-70s and those at greater risk to self-isolate for 12 weeks.

Despite granting police powers to detain infected individuals deemed to pose a risk to public health, Mr Johnson has stopped short of enforcing closures of schools, businesses and public places.

Mr Pilorget said the latest British government guidance – issued less than 24 hours after he left London – did not go far enough.

“Encouraging people not to go to the pub and telling people it’s best working from home is clearly not enough,” said Mr Pilorget, who is self-isolating at his family home in Brittany, near his oncologist.

“I understand you can’t stop an entire country all of a sudden without any bad outcome on the economy but I really have the feeling Boris is the Titanic captain.”

Mr Pilorget said there was a noticeable difference in the mood between London and Paris, where he arrived on the Eurostar on Sunday night.

“It’s a ghost town,” he said. “Everything is closed. People are not going out.”

French president Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday imposed restrictions to the effect that citizens may only leave home to buy food, go to work or do essential tasks.

“The French president has declared we are at war against an invisible enemy. There’s a tension in the air, something heavy,” said Mr Pilorget, who is currently still able to work remotely in his sales role.

He said he feels it is taking time for the seriousness of the situation to sink in for people in the UK, as it did in France.

“I feel like it takes a lot of time for people to realise what’s happening. Two months ago, we were just watching the news thinking this would never happen here,” he said.

“It took time for French people to realise what was happening in Italy, and it is taking time for people in the UK to realise what’s happening in Europe at the moment.”

Additional reporting by PA