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 Wednesday that England’s Chief Medical Officer Professor 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….