Mr Hancock mentioned in his e-book, Pandemic Diaries, that the “tragic however sincere reality” at first of April was that “we don’t have sufficient testing capability”.
The WhatsApp messages leaked to The Telegraph embrace one-to-one conversations between ministers on the coronary heart of presidency.
They have been handed to The Telegraph by Isabel Oakeshott, the political journalist who was given copies of Mr Hancock’s messages whereas engaged on his Pandemic Diaries memoir. She writes for The Telegraph explaining her causes for making the data public, saying, as regards to the Covid inquiry: “We completely can not wait any longer for solutions”.
Reacting to The Telegraph’s report on Tuesday night time, the broadcaster Piers Morgan mentioned: “Astonishing & completely damning scoop. And we do should know.”
Jess Phillips, Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley and shadow minister for home violence and safeguarding, mentioned: “If particulars about how Hancock was extra bothered about hitting his goal on testing by presumably losing checks that led to much less capability in care properties is true, then think about how those that misplaced family members in that week will really feel.”
“With this lot its all the time headlines earlier than entrance strains.”
The Telegraph will reveal how kids’s training was sacrificed so as to keep away from political confrontations; how isolation guidelines that introduced the financial system to its knees might have been lifted sooner and the way the Authorities sought to frighten the general public to make sure they complied with lockdown.
Inquiry timing criticised
The general public inquiry into the Authorities’s dealing with of the pandemic started earlier this week, however has been criticised as a result of it is not going to deal with the explanations for lockdown choices till its second module – that means any findings are unlikely to be launched for years.
The leaked cache of information will increase severe questions over how Mr Johnson’s administration dealt with the disaster.
The messages will inevitably stir debate over the Authorities’s repeated claims it was all the time following the science when it took choices about tackling the pandemic. The UK has seen a loss of life toll of greater than 216,000 to this point, whereas the financial system suffered a shock from which it’s struggling to recuperate.
Some well being specialists consider the collateral injury from hospitals cancelling and delaying therapy to deal with Covid is behind an enormous spike in extra deaths, elevating the chance that lockdowns brought on extra hurt to public well being than the virus itself.
The revelations will anger households who misplaced family members in care properties and can gas criticism that grownup social care was uncared for in the course of the pandemic.
Greater than 45,000 care house residents died with Covid in England and Wales in the course of the first two years of the pandemic, with many individuals feeling the sector was deserted.
There was additionally a rise in deaths from causes aside from Covid. Total mortality charges in English care properties jumped by 79 per cent within the first 16 weeks of the pandemic, and by April the danger of loss of life for a care house resident was 17 instances larger than for another person of the identical age residing at house.
