Trump team thought UK officials ‘out of their minds’ aiming for herd immunity, book says

Trump officials tried to convince him to take threat seriously and British experts oddly pessimistic' on defeating virus, says book

US officials thought their British counterparts were out of their minds" in aiming for herd immunity as part of Boris Johnson's initial policy on dealing with the coronavirus, according to a new book about the global response to the pandemic.

As the scale of the threat became increasingly clear in January and February 2020, officials in Donald Trump's administration were trying to convince him to take the threat seriously, despite personal reassurances he had been given by Chinese president, Xi Jinping, that it was under control.