What do Matt Hancock's COVID messages actually tell us?
This Is Why
Sky News
4.0 • 552 Ratings
🗓️ 2 March 2023
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With preliminary hearings for the UK COVID-19 Inquiry under way, the new revelations raise further questions around Westminster's response to the global pandemic.
On the Sky News Daily Podcast, Niall Paterson is joined by science and technology correspondent Tom Clarke who has been digging into Mr Hancock's leaked messages and their wider implications. Also, Nick Martin, Sky’s people and politics correspondent, reflects on his experience reporting in care homes at the height of the pandemic.
Podcast producer: Rosie Gillott
Junior podcast producer: Charlie Bell
Podcast promotions producer: David Chipakupaku
Editor: Philly Beaumont
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | For unlimited all-day travel in London, think TFL. With the daily cap fair frozen until March |
| 0:06.2 | 2027, travel as much as you like on tube, bus, Elizabeth line, DLR and overground, knowing you'll |
| 0:14.1 | never pay any more than £8.0.0.0.0. Download TFL Go to plan your journey. |
| 0:24.0 | To the Mayor of London and TFL, every journey matters. |
| 0:27.6 | Always use the same card of device when touching in and out for full terms and conditions, |
| 0:29.0 | such TFL fare capping. |
| 0:31.5 | Pain in my hip. |
| 0:34.3 | I keep feeling dizzy. |
| 0:38.4 | I'm getting migraines more often. |
| 0:45.2 | There's another way to contact your GP practice by simply sending your symptoms and requests through their website or the NHS app. We're delivering an NHS fit for the future. |
| 0:51.7 | Tap it, type it and we'll take care of it. |
| 0:56.8 | Julia, how do you spell vertebrae? |
| 0:58.6 | Oh, just tight pain in the neck. |
| 1:06.2 | Right from the start, it's been clear that this horrible virus affects older people most. |
| 1:12.3 | So right from the start, we've tried to throw a protective ring around our care homes. |
| 1:19.7 | That I'm sure you will recognise as Matt Hancock, speaking at a Downing Street COVID briefing back on the 15th of May 2020. |
| 1:28.3 | From the very earliest days of the pandemic, it was clear that older people could be particularly vulnerable to coronavirus. As the virus grew, we strengthened it throughout. |
| 1:31.3 | We've made sure that care homes have the resources they need to control the spread of infection. |
| 1:36.3 | Yet according to WhatsApp messages leaked to the Telegraph newspaper, |
| 1:40.3 | almost a month to the day before he uttered those words, the Health Secretary was told |
| 1:45.9 | by the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Witty, that everyone entering a care home, either |
| 1:51.7 | from hospitals or anywhere else, should be tested and segregated from others until the results |
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