Professor Sir Chris Whitty to give evidence to COVID inquiry today
Professor Sir Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, will be the latest high-profile figure to reveal his first-hand experience of the COVID pandemic when he gives evidence to the inquiry later today.
Sir Chris became a household name alongside the chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, when the pair appeared alongside politicians at the daily COVID press conferences.
As chief medical officer, Sir Chris is responsible for providing public health and clinical advice to the Department of Health and the rest of government. Along with Sir Patrick, he helped steer the UK through the unprecedented crisis.
Before he was launched into the limelight, Sir Chris played a leading role advising on the UK response to the Ebola epidemic in 2014 as chief scientific adviser to the Department for International Development.
He has previously given evidence to module one of the inquiry, which looked at how prepared the UK was for a pandemic when COVID-19 struck.
Sir Chris said during that module that the UK did “not have the ability to scale up” quickly to deal with the pandemic in areas such as testing, and that the non-pharmaceutical interventions – social measures such as quarantine, individual isolation, closing schools – were not new and some went back to the Middle Ages.
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In WhatsApp messages leaked to The Daily Telegraph by journalist Isabel Oakeshott after she helped write Matt Hancock’s book, Pandemic Diaries, it was revealed that Sir Chris advised against imposing a lockdown “sex ban” because couples were “not likely to listen” to orders to stay apart.
But it is module two of the inquiry, on decision-making, that is more overtly political and is likely to generate the most headlines.
His colleague at the time, Sir Patrick, was doing just that yesterday, telling the inquiry about some of the reflections he had written in his contemporaneous diary.
Tensions between politicians and scientists, and among themselves, were palpable.
‘Just let people die’
Among the most eye-catching claims yesterday was that Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser, had said that Rishi Sunak thought the government should “just let people die” rather than see the country go into another lockdown.
Sir Patrick’s diary entry said Mr Cummings made the remark during a heated meeting over whether to impose stricter pandemic measures in October 2020.
In the extract, shown to the inquiry on Monday, Sir Patrick said Mr Johnson had argued against any lockdown, saying he was for “letting it all rip” and that those who would die from contracting the virus had “had a good innings”.
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‘Science was not Boris Johnson’s forte’
Sir Patrick then detailed a row between Mr Johnson and his chief adviser, with Mr Cummings calling for the PM to act, but the former prime minister was “getting very frustrated” and “throwing papers down” in the meeting, before saying he did not want another lockdown.
The meeting ended with an agreement to “beef up” the tier system being implemented across the country at the time and to “consider a national lockdown”.
Sir Patrick also wrote: “DC [Dominic Cummings] says ‘Rishi thinks just let people die and that’s OK’.”
Sir Patrick also told the inquiry that neither he nor Sir Chris knew about the Eat Out to Help Out scheme before it was announced, but that they felt it was “very obvious to anyone that this inevitably would cause an increase in transmission risk, and I think that would have been known by ministers”.
Mr Sunak’s witness statement refutes this, saying: “I don’t recall any concerns about the scheme being expressed during ministerial discussions” – including those attended by Sir Patrick and Sir Chris.
‘We found it useful to work together’
Sir Patrick was also asked about differences of opinions he had with the chief medical officer in the early stages of the pandemic after scientist Sir Jeremy Farrar wrote his own diary entry in which he described “friction” between the two.
Asked whether there was tension between himself and Sir Chris, Sir Patrick said the chief medical officer was a public health specialist who was rightly concerned about the adverse effects of interventions such as lockdown.
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He said Sir Chris was “concerned that there would be more than just the issue of the direct cause of death from the virus”, including the impact on the NHS, isolating, mental health and loneliness as well as “indirect long term consequences” such as poverty.
“And that I think is a totally appropriate worry from the chief medical officer and a legitimate public health concern throughout,” Sir Patrick said.
“And I didn’t have exactly the same worry. I was more on the side of we need to move on this, but I think that’s partly why the two of us found it useful to work together.”
If Sir Patrick’s testimony is anything to go by, then the inquiry will likely be braced for further revelations later today.
UK
‘A catastrophic scandal’: Inside the tower block so dangerous residents face being kicked out at any moment
The moment we step into Willow Rise, the smell of damp is overpowering.
There are water stains across the carpet and rotten wood on the doors.
Around the corner, there’s a hole in the wall, barely patched up with a piece of polystyrene sheet.
We’re meeting a resident on the 13th floor of the building in Kirkby, Merseyside – but the lifts are broken and wires hang out of the service panel.
Like everyone living here, we will have to walk.
The disrepair in this block is everywhere you look.
Damp staining and ceiling damage around the block
It has now been deemed so unsafe by Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service that they are days away from serving a rare prohibition notice on this tower and its neighbour, Beech Rise, meaning residents will have to leave with immediate effect.
In total, 160 households here face instant homelessness.
After climbing 13 flights of stairs, we meet Chris Penfold-Ivany.
‘A catastrophic scandal’
He has terminal cancer, and after chemotherapy and a liver transplant, that climb is now the only way he can get up to his flat.
Chris Penfold-Ivany warns ‘this is another Grenfell in the making’
He tells us it’s making him breathless. He can no longer get his prescriptions delivered, as the drivers won’t come up all the stairs.
“It’s a catastrophic scandal that we have been left like this,” he says.
He has lived in this flat for 15 years and has watched the block slowly begin to fall apart over the last decade.
He tells us that numerous complaints have achieved nothing. “I’m going to say it,” he says, “this is another Grenfell in the making.”
‘Nobody can live like this‘
A few floors down, Arunee Leerasiri opens the door to us, in floods of tears.
The stress of the last few weeks has left her anxious and overwhelmed. There are boxes everywhere, bare hooks on the walls where pictures hung.
She is packing up her life just three years after putting her life savings into buying this flat.
Arunee Leerasiri says she doesn’t even recognise her flat as her home anymore
Her elderly mother has come to visit, but she had to hire removal men already to take her mattress into storage as she couldn’t manage without the lifts.
Tonight, and until they are told they must leave, they will sleep on the floor.
“I can’t eat, I can’t sleep,” she tells us, through tears. “Sometimes, if I’m honest, I can’t even think. This used to be my home, and now I look around and I don’t even recognise it.”
“Nobody can live like this,” she adds.
‘Danger, 415 volts’
Water damage around electrical equipment, including a ‘Danger high voltage’ labelled box
She shows us a video she filmed just a few weeks ago, of one of the electrical risers on the ground floor.
None of us can quite believe what we are seeing – water is pouring through the ceiling, directly on to fuse boxes and electrical wiring.
Arunee takes us down to show us the cupboard. The water has now stopped but there are damp stains all over the floor and around the electrical equipment.
The water pipes and electric boxes are just inches away from one another within the cupboard.
One of the boxes, marked ‘Danger, 415 volts’, is rusted through.
Next to it, there is a notice stuck to a resident’s door telling them a leak has been identified in their flat – and as a leaseholder, they will be responsible for paying to fix it.
“Tell me, how is this safe?” Arunee says. “Why is this building allowed to be open for the public, as a dwelling, with this kind of set-up?”
A hole in a wall patched up with polystyrene
Hidden owners and a plea to the government
Merseyside Fire and Rescue tell us they have been serving enforcement notices on the building managers for years, to no avail.
They have now been told there is no money for the millions of pounds worth of repairs that will be needed to bring the blocks up to a safe standard.
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They have mandated a ‘waking watch’, where teams physically patrol the buildings daily to check for fire risks, without which they will serve the prohibition notice and tell residents they must leave straight away.
Knowsley Council has stepped in to pay for this temporarily – at a cost of £3,000 per day.
Their deputy leader tells us, though, that the money will soon run out.
Willow Rise and Beech Rise Towers in Merseyside have both been condemned by the fire service
Where to go?
With a complex management structure and several owners, managers and agents over the years, the council says it doesn’t even know who is to blame for the disrepair – or who even has the legal responsibility for maintaining the buildings.
It says discussions are ongoing with central government about whether any extra help – or money – can be provided to try to fix the mess.
Right now though, all the residents can do is wait.
With no date to leave and no idea if anything can be done to keep the buildings open, they are spending every day fearing the call to tell them they have to go.
They can only hope there will be somewhere for them if they do.
Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf has reversed his decision to quit the party, saying “the mission is too important” and that he “cannot let people down”.
Instead, he said he will return in a new role, heading up an Elon Musk-inspired “UK DOGE” team.
In a statement, he said: “Over the last 24 hours I have received a huge number of lovely and heartfelt messages from people who have expressed their dismay at my resignation, urging me to reconsider.”
He added: “I know the mission is too important and I cannot let people down.
“So, I will be continuing my work with Reform, my commitment redoubled.”
Mr Yusuf said he would be returning in a new role, seemingly focusing on cuts and efficiency within government.
He said he would “fight for taxpayers”.
Only two days prior, Mr Yusuf dramatically handed in his resignation.
He claimed he no longer thought getting a Reform government elected was a “good use of my time” – but has now seemingly changed his mind.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage welcomed the news of Mr Yusuf’s return.
He said: “I am delighted that Zia Yusuf will head up Reform UK’s DOGE department.”
Nigel Farage welcomed Zia Yusuf’s return. File pic: PA
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Mr Yusuf’s initial decision to quit came after he publicly distanced himself from the party’s new MP, Sarah Pochin, when she asked Sir Keir Starmer about banning the burka at Prime Minister’s Questions.
Reform said a ban was not party policy – and the chairman called it a “dumb” thing to ask.
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What is DOGE?
DOGE is a meme-coin inspired creation of Musk’s, standing for the Department of Government Efficiency.
It is the latest right-wing US import into British politics.
Before his public fallout with Donald Trump, the tech billionaire said his focus was saving taxpayers’ money by locating wasteful spending within government and cutting it.
Read more: How Elon Musk’s mission to cut government spending fell flat
However, opposition politicians questioned the impact of his efforts and how much he actually saved.
Musk initially had ambitions to slash government spending by $2trn (£1.5trn) – but this was dramatically reduced to $1trn (£750bn) and then to just $150bn (£111bn).
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