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November 21, 2024 - 5:00pm
Matt Hancock has today told the Covid inquiry that efforts from other parts of Government to relax lockdown rules “stiffened his resolve” to extend them.
The inquiry, which at £208 million will be the most expensive in British history, heard that the former health secretary was “in a battle with other parts of Government to ensure that the measures that we were taking were enough to stop the spread of the virus”. “There was pressure from others to release measures which were, in my view, too soon,” Hancock said. “And it stiffened my resolve to resist those measures to relax too soon”.
Hancock was asked about how his experiences on the frontlines in A&E departments impacted his decisions. The former MP for West Suffolk told the inquiry that after a difficult shift in the Basildon hospital in January 2021 during the second wave of Covid, a doctor burst into tears and said to him: “We’re in a second wave, secretary of state, you cannot allow a third”. “We were also in the middle of the vaccine rollout which was the ultimate way out of it,” Hancock claimed. “And it was critical that we didn’t release too soon before the vaccine had the chance to work.”
The former health secretary also told the inquiry: “And I’d spent the whole Autumn before that fighting for lockdown to stop the second wave. I’d been determined to do everything I could but that [exchange with the doctor] made it even stronger.”
In the wake of Covid-19, the damage wrought from extended periods of lockdown and harsh restrictions is still being assessed, particularly in the health and social care sectors. A landmark 2023 report from the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) described lockdown as having a “catastrophic effect” on the country’s social fabric.
“During lockdown calls to a domestic abuse helpline rose 700%; mental ill health in young people went from one in nine to one in six and nearly a quarter amongst the oldest children,” the report stated. “Severe absence from school jumped 134%; 1.2 million more people went on working-age benefits, 86% more people sought help for addictions; prisoners were locked up for 22.5 hours per day.”
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SubscribeAll this, all this, when Hancock is just a common criminal.
What a gaslighter. Confiscate all he owns. Put him in an unheated flat. No visitors. Do not allow him to walk in the sun. Do not allow him to go to church, to work, to the store or the movies. Make him a test subject for any and all pharma experiments.
It wasn’t his ‘resolve’ that stiffened, but his propensity for extramarital liaisons.
So not only is he stupid, he’s proud of his stupidity. Classic Dunning Kruger.
Not the most informative Article. Hardly a surprise Hancock responding as he has.
The question remains, what would have happened without Lockdowns and would consequences have been worse than the clear downsides we more fully appreciate now ? It’s a counterfactual we’ll never know for sure, but it’s crucial the Inquiry endeavours to make some conclusions on this that are not just obvious self justification.
My experience of the initial surge is the deathrate would have exploded much more without LD1. I don’t buy it was stabilising already and had plateau’d. Nor that we’d have all acted sensibly voluntarily. The fact folks would then have reacted differently could have generated even more anger, even public disorder, than a blanket rule for all. I think that would also have resulted in alot of NHS staff simply refusing to come to work if large elements of the public were being, what many would have considered, irresponsible. The risk of coming into an environment full of a virus that was killing patients and many staff beyond our powers to initially understand it held because we knew of the public sacrifice too.
Convinced LD1 bought us crucial time. We’d have been completely overwhelmed and thousands, if not more, non Covid emergencies would never have got care or treatment. LD2 more debatable and also by then Govt and rest of us had more time to prepare. And of course we must have better resilience to start with next time. There has been no national increase in intensive care capacity since 2020.
I think that would also have resulted in alot of NHS staff simply refusing to come to work if large elements of the public were being, what many would have considered, irresponsible.
Im assuming you mean hospitals would have been inundated with people arriving at A&E with symptoms. But if the government hadn’t panicked everyone with the idea that “Covid was hunting them down” then they might not have flooded the system with their fears. Poor information, vague facts and outright deception contributed to the fear that lead to the lockdowns to control the panic created by the government. And in fact non Covid emergencies didn’t get the care needed anyway. Cancer treatments were postponed as well as surgery.
You’ve not been looking at the studies then that show lockdowns did not have a limiting effect on covid in the short or medium termYou’ve not even attempted to consciously weigh the medium term impacts on lives, economy and society, cited in this story, of lockdowns, against the supposed benefits. You just make assertions. Fortunately others have done the calculations, and the costs have been horrendous. Improved spelling will assist your arguments.
You might well be making some good points but I wish you’d just write coherently.