The former prime minister Boris Johnson was “dismissive of disaster” and labelled lengthy Covid as “b*****ks”, an inquiry heard on Tuesday.
Mr Johnson was additionally accused of failing to guide the nation within the early days of the disaster, the UK Covid Inquiry was advised.
As the second a part of the inquiry started, the Bereaved Families for Justice group mentioned there was a “leadership void” within the early days of the disaster and accused Mr Johnson of “cavalier” public messaging simply weeks earlier than the primary lockdown.
And lengthy Covid teams claimed that the previous prime minister initially “denied the truth of the suffering” of lengthy Covid sufferers.
Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak has insisted he’s “expansively” serving to the Inquiry after it was claimed he’s unable to offer WhatsApp messages as a result of he did not again them up. The PM wrote in his witness assertion to the inquiry that he does “not have access” to the messages from when he was chancellor as a result of he modified his cellphone a number of instances.
Asked by BBC News on the Conservative Party convention in Manchester whether or not it was true he now not had the WhatsApp messages, Mr Sunak refused to be drawn, saying: “What I can tell you because obviously this is a legal process which is going on, is that I’m helping the Covid inquiry fully and very, very expansively with everything.”
Anthony Metzer KC, talking on behalf of lengthy Covid teams, advised the inquiry: “In October 2020, while the Department of Health and Social Care was publishing guidance on long Covid and called for recognition and support for people with long Covid, then prime minister Boris Johnson scrawled in capitals that long Covid was ‘b*****ks’.
“Mr Johnson has admitted in his witness statement that he didn’t believe long Covid truly existed, dismissing it as ‘Gulf War Syndrome stuff’. The inquiry will be concerned to probe how the former prime minister could possibly hold this view in October 2020.”
He added: “Adults and children were and still are suffering from debilitating, painful and terrifying symptoms for months and now years after infection, and yet Mr Johnson denied the truth of their suffering.
“The UK’s senior most decision-makers were dismissing, diminishing and disbelieving the very existence and risk of long Covid.”
The inquiry’s lead counsel Hugo Keith KC additionally revealed WhatsApp messages between Boris Johnson, his former chief political aide Dominic Cummings and others, portraying “a depressing picture of a toxic atmosphere” in the course of the pandemic, Sky News reported.
The messages additionally confirmed “factional infighting and internecine attacks on colleagues”, Mr Keith mentioned. A major variety of messages and diary entries are reported to consult with then-health secretary Matt Hancock.
Mr Keith mentioned: “A text from Simon Case, then a senior civil servant yet to become cabinet secretary to [former health secretary] Matt Hancock on the 29 April reads: ‘The Cabinet Office is a totally dysfunctional mess at present, so not a great place to be’.”
But the inquiry additionally heard that key WhatsApp messages by the then-prime minister from 31 January to 7 June 2020 are “unrecoverable”.
The lack of these messages is a “remarkable and unfortunate coincidence”, lawyer Peter Weatherby KC, for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, advised the inquiry.
Mr Weatherby known as for specialists to look at the cellphone to see whether or not the messages might be retrieved “and whether they might have been deleted”.
“Mr Johnson claims that although he’s downloaded the phone, the WhatsApp messaging from the crucial period of the January 31 to June 7 2020 are unrecoverable,” Mr Weatherby mentioned.
“A remarkable and unfortunate coincidence, we would say. We would urge the inquiry to commission experts to see why those messages can’t be retrieved and whether they may have been deleted.”
Diary entries by Sir Patrick Vallance had been additionally learn out on Tuesday, wherein the federal government’s former chief scientific adviser criticised Mr Johnson’s “impossible flip-flopping” and “bipolar decision-making” – writing of “chaos as usual” in Downing Street after a gathering on social-distancing, the BBC reported.
His notes reportedly learn: “On Friday, the two-metre rule meeting made it abundantly clear that no-one in Number 10 or the Cabinet Office had really read or taken time to understand the science advice on two metres. Quite extraordinary.”
The notes additionally alleged faction combating inside No 10 involving Michael Gove and in addition Mr Johnson’s spouse, Carrie.
In different entries, Sir Patrick reportedly mentioned he felt scientists had been “used as human shields” by ministers. On 19 September 2020, he wrote: “[Johnson] is all over the place and so completely inconsistent. You can see why it was so difficult to get agreement to lock down first time.”
Mr Weatherby mentioned that Mr Johnson “failed to take the emerging threat seriously” as he known as on the inquiry to contemplate “whether vital time to form a contingency plan and to act was squandered” and that key preparations might not have taken place “because part of the government was in denial, and others had a false view of its own preparedness”.
The inquiry additionally heard {that a} Cobra assembly was briefed on Covid on 29 January – however Mr Johnson was not current.
Mr Weatherby mentioned: “He wasn’t at Cobra for more than another month after until March. He’ll tell us that he properly left things to others but the reality is there was a leadership void.”
He added: “It was two months into the emergency before Mr Johnson attended his first Cobra meeting, March 2, the day before he engaged in what can only be described as cavalier and incredibly unhelpful public messaging when he visited the Royal Free Hospital telling the media: ‘I think there were a few coronavirus patients and I shook hands with everybody, you will be pleased to know, and I continue to shake hands’.
“It’s difficult to see his actions and media comments as nothing other than dismissive of a disaster which had been looming for two months, and was now just around the corner.”
Mr Weatherby additionally referenced the Eat Out to Help Out scheme. “It appears it was rolled out without any scientific advice,” he mentioned.
“We anticipate that scientists will say their advice would have been strongly against such a hare-brained scheme.
“The inquiry will have to consider whether the government really was following the science, or whether [then chancellor] Mr Sunak’s flagship policy hastened the next wave of infections.”
Mr Johnson, his former chief aide Dominic Cummings, Rishi Sunak, and former well being secretary Matt Hancock, are anticipated to talk on the inqury, together with chief scientific and medical advisers. Hearings are attributable to proceed till 2026, however with interim studies launched earlier than that date.
The present hearings relate to the second of 4 modules into which the inquiry has has been divided: resilience and preparedness; core UK decision-making and political governance; the influence of the pandemic on healthcare; and vaccines and therapeutics.
In his opening assertion in June, the inquiry’s lead counsel mentioned the nation was “taken by surprise” by “significant aspects” of the illness that has been recorded on greater than 225,000 loss of life certificates.
Mr Keith has recommended that Brexit preparations “crowded out and prevented” the work wanted to enhance pandemic preparedness, whereas bereaved households have warned inquiry proof will doubtless present “chaos” in authorities led to a sluggish response to a pandemic the place “lost time is measured in lost lives”.
Source: www.impartial.co.uk