While Prime Minister, Mr Johnson allegedly sent a video of a man using such a device to Chief Medical Officer Sir Chris Whitty and Chief Scientific Officer Sir Patrick Vallance, and asked what they thought.
Mr Cummings told the Covid Inquiry that Mr Johnson also asked him in autumn 2020 to divert media attention from the pandemic using the “dead cat strategy” of circulating arresting claims about another matter.
Mr Johnson allegedly said: “I’m sick of Covid, I want it off the front pages”.
Mr Cummings also claimed the then-PM was “extremely distracted” on a holiday in February 2020 in the weeks before the first lockdown.
He added: “He had a divorce to finalise and was grappling with financial problems from that plus his girlfriend’s spending plans for the No10 flat…He said he wanted to work on his Shakespeare book published the following year.”
