WhatsApp conversations ‘leaked’ by the Covid bereaved have poured scorn on the government after a trove of messages showed ministers light-heartedly discussing the outbreak of the disease.
The Daily Telegraph has been publishing leaked correspondence from former health secretary, Matt Hancock, which were shared with the newspaper by journalist Isabel Oakeshott, who co-authored Hancock’s memoir the Pandemic Diaries.
The latest messages show Hancock criticising vaccines tsar Dame Kate Bingham, after she had used an interview with the Financial Times to claim that vaccinating everyone in the UK was “not going to happen” and the country needed to just “vaccinate everyone at risk”.
Exchanges from October 2020 show him saying she “has view and a wacky way of expressing them & is totally unreliable”.
“She regards anything that isn’t her idea as political interference.”
Hancock also complained in February 2021 about Dame Kate and Dr Dix, who took over as chairman after her six-month term came to an end, amid concerns about UK access to vaccines from the Serum Institute of India.
Reacting to the leak, Covid bereaved have shared their own WhatsApp correspondence with loved ones.
One woman, who goes by ‘samsonovphotoart’ on Twitter, said the leaked tweets from members of the government showed “zero empathy, a distain, and a self-serving need keep their reputation”.
“Amidst emoji and in jokes while our loved ones are dying.”
Read the heartbreaking texts in full below:
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