The former health secretary asserts that the warning was mostly disregarded during a cabinet discussion, and he suggests that the then-prime minister, Boris Johnson, was unwilling to address the issue.
Matt Hancock has stated that he was informed that the COVID pandemic may kill hundreds of thousands of people in the United Kingdom two months before the country’s lockdown, but that ministers “did not truly believe it.”
Professor Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, advised the former health secretary in January 2020 that in a “realistic worst-case scenario,” as many as 820,000 people could perish.
Mr. Hancock stated that when he relayed the warning to other ministers three days later at a cabinet meeting, the response was “shrug shrug” because they did not believe it.
The information is detailed in Mr. Hancock’s Pandemic Diaries: The Inside Story Of Britain’s Battle Against Covid, which was serialized in the Daily Mail and The Mail+.
He stated that on 17 January, Sir Whitty issued a warning that there was a 50/50 probability that the virus will spread to the United Kingdom and outlined the probabilities.
“The entire room went icy. We are witnessing a human disaster of unprecedented proportions.”
However, when he presented the warning to the Cabinet on Brexit Day, January 31, he reported that it was generally treated with indifference.
“They responded with a “shrug shrug” since they essentially didn’t trust it. I am continually under the impression that those who aren’t devoted to this every day are weeks behind what’s happening “he stated.
Johnson: “It will likely disappear.”
Mr. Hancock also stated that Boris Johnson has resisted engaging with the issue.
When he initially brought up the outbreak in China with him at the beginning of January, his response was: “You keep an eye on it. It will likely disappear.”
A month later, he stated that he had cautioned Mr. Johnson that while it was still possible to contain the virus, “it’s more likely that we’re going down.” The response, he added, was just “Keep beating.”
According to statistics, more than 200,000 people with COVID have died in the United Kingdom.
As Mr. Hancock returned to Westminster for the first time following his contentious participation in I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!
Hancock argues for the release of nursing home patients
Mr. Hancock also defended his handling of the contentious decision to release care home residents without testing from the hospital, which was responsible for thousands of fatalities.
On April 2, he observed: “Tragically, but truthfully, we do not have the sufficient testing capability to check anyway. It is an absolute nightmare, but it is the truth.”
The High Court found in April that the government behaved improperly by releasing untested hospital patients into care homes during the early phases of the outbreak.
The initial nationwide lockdown began on March 23, 2020.
