RE: Telegraph1 Mar 2023 07:07
The Lockdown Files: Matt Han**** rejected expert advice on care home testing, WhatsApp messages reveal
Huge leak reveals conversations from 100,000 texts, showing how then health secretary did not follow Sir Chris Whitty’s tough line
Matt Han**** rejected the Chief Medical Officer’s advice to test for Covid all residents going into English care homes, leaked messages seen by The Telegraph reveal.
Prof Sir Chris Whitty told the then health secretary early in April 2020, about a month into the pandemic, that there should be testing for “all going into care homes”. But Mr Han**** did not follow that guidance, telling his advisers that it “muddies the waters”.
Instead, he introduced guidance that made testing mandatory for those entering care homes from hospital, but not for those coming from the community. Prior to the guidance, care homes had been told that negative tests were not required even for hospital patients. The guidance stating that those coming in from the community should be tested was eventually introduced on Aug 14.
Between April 17 and August 13, 2020, a total of 17,678 people died of Covid in care homes in England.
In the first two years of the pandemic, there were more than 40,000 Covid deaths in care homes in England, as the most vulnerable in society bore the brunt of the fatalities.
Mr Han**** himself later told MPs that transmission from the community – particularly from staff - was the “strongest route” for Covid into care homes.
The Telegraph has obtained more than 100,000 WhatsApp messages sent between the then health secretary and other ministers and officials at the height of the pandemic.
The messages comprise 2.3million words - three times as many words as the King James Bible contains.
The communications span the years of the pandemic and reveal discussions between the then health secretary and those at the heart of the decision-making process, including the then prime minister, Boris Johnson.
Other conversations involve Sir Chris, the Government's Chief Medical Officer, and Sir Patrick Vallance, its chief scientific adviser.
The messaging groups have names such as “Top Teams”, “Covid 19 senior group” and “crisis management” – the name of a group created to deal with the fallout from Mr Han****’s relationship with his aide, Gina Coladangelo.
Over the coming days, the Telegraph will reveal the messages, which lay bare the extent to which groupthink among aides and ministers affected pandemic decisions.
The messages also reveal the often casual approach that ministers took to making major decisions, including the call to close classrooms, introduce face masks in schools and provide testing in care homes.
They show how Mr Han**** expressed concerns that expanding testing in care home could "get in the way" of his self-imposed target of 100,000 Covid tests per day.
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