Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has defended an official COVID-19 inquiry as the “right way” to scrutinise the handling of the pandemic after former Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s WhatsApp messages were published in a British newspaper.
Based on a trove of more than 100,000 WhatsApp messages, The Daily Telegraph newspaper claimed on March 1 that England’s Chief Medical Officer Sir Chris Whitty advised Hancock in April 2020 that everyone going into care homes should be tested for COVID-19.
The relevant exchanges, from April 14, 2020, suggested that Hancock rejected the guidance, telling an aide the move just “muddies the waters” and introduced mandatory testing only for those coming from hospitals rather than the community.
Following the report, Hancock, who resigned in June 2021, disputed the claims made by the Telegraph, calling them “flat wrong,” and claiming the messages had been “spun to fit an anti-lockdown agenda.”
‘Colossal Whitewash’
Hancock had willingly given his ...