Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, will make an all-day appearance on Tuesday. Then on Wednesday, Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, the former deputy chief medical officer, and the current chief scientific adviser, Prof Dame Angela McLean – who described the-then chancellor Rishi Sunak as “Dr Death” in the weeks following the Treasury- inspired “eat out to help out” scheme in August 2020 – will appear before the inquiry.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Vallance will be followed in the witness box by the other top scientists who flanked ministers at the televised daily Covid press conferences.
Then on Wednesday, Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, the former deputy chief medical officer, and the current chief scientific adviser, Prof Dame Angela McLean – who described the-then chancellor Rishi Sunak as “Dr Death” in the weeks following the Treasury- inspired “eat out to help out” scheme in August 2020 – will appear before the inquiry.
The inquiry is also likely to examine whether the scientists found themselves under political pressure to toe the line as part of the government team, with the result that the true extent of the dangers that they knew existed was not conveyed to the public.
One potentially difficult area for the scientists could be evidence that has already emerged which suggests that they had on several occasions seemed to have been stronger in their warnings about the Covid pandemic in private than they were in public.
It has already emerged that Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s former chief adviser, told a No 10 aides’ WhatsApp group on 6 February 2020 that Vallance had just said to him that the virus was “probably out of control now and will sweep the world”.
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.
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