Former UK Health Minister Matt Hancock has once again come into the limelight. Hancock had come into the limelight for kissing office colleague Gina Koladangelo during the peak of the Corona epidemic, the matter escalated so much that he had to first apologize and then step down on charges of breaking the rules of social distancing. Now he is once again in discussion because in the year 2020, when the epidemic was at its peak, he had a lot of chats with the officials on WhatsApp.
However he said he wanted to “frighten the pants off everyone” to ensure compliance with Covid-19 restrictions, in leaked messages which reveal discussions over when to “deploy” details of a new strain.
“But the complication with that Brexit is taking the top line,” he said, in an apparent reference to media coverage of the UK’s EU exit.
“Yep that’s what will get proper behaviour change,” the adviser said.
“When do we deploy the new variant,” Mr Hancock said.
The website The Telegraph claims that when the Covid-19 epidemic was at its peak, Matt Hancock and other ministers and officials chatted fiercely on WhatsApp, and during this time more than 100,000 WhatsApp messages were sent between them. The conversation raises several important questions about the handling of the pandemic ahead of the ongoing public inquiry into the Covid-19 disaster.
CMO’s advice was rejected
Leaked WhatsApp messages have revealed that Matt Hancock overruled the Chief Medical Officer’s advice for all residents visiting English care homes to be tested for Covid.
Professor Sir Chris Whitty told the then Health Secretary in early April 2020 that “everyone going into care homes” should be tested for the pandemic. But Mr. Hancock did not give his consent regarding this guideline.
Instead, they introduced a separate guideline that made Covid tests mandatory for those moving from hospital to care homes, but not for those coming from the community. Prior to the guideline, care homes were told that negative tests were not required for hospital patients as well. It was also said in the guideline that those coming from the community should also be tested, which was finally introduced on 14 August.
1 lakh WhatsApp messages, 23 lakh words
Between April 17 and August 13, 2020, there was a huge devastation in care homes in England and a total of 17,678 people died due to the epidemic.
In the first two years of the corona pandemic, more than 40,000 people died in care homes in England due to Covid, with the most vulnerable sections of society suffering the most. Hancock himself later told British MPs that the biggest reason for infection from the community was the staff of the hospital.
The Telegraph claims to have accessed over 100,000 WhatsApp messages sent between the then health minister and other ministers and officials during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic. If this entire chat is added in words, then it becomes 23 lakh words and it is three times more than the words written in King James Bible.
In this phase of the pandemic, it goes as far as to suggest that there was a lot of discussion between the then health minister, including the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, and those at the center of the decision-making process.
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