Covid: UK health secretary Matt Hancock to self-isolate

Matt Hancock has become the latest senior politician to be forced to selfisolate due to contact with someone who has contracted coronavirus, with the UK health secretary saying he had been “pinged” by the NHS app.

Hancock said he would stay at home until Sunday. While the standard self-isolation period is 10 days, this dates from the time of the contact. This would indicate he was in contact with the relevant person on Wednesday or Thursday last week.

In a video posted on Twitter, he said: “Last night I was pinged by the NHS coronavirus app, so that means I’ll be self-isolating at home, not leaving the house at all until Sunday.

“This self-isolation is perhaps the most important part of all the social distancing because I know from the app I’ve been in close contact with somebody who has tested positive and this is how we break the chains of transmission. “So you must follow these rules, like I’m going to. I’ve got to work from home for the next six days, and together, by doing this, by following this, and all the other panoply of rules that we’ve had to put in place, we can get through this and beat this virus.”

Hancock, who was alerted after hosting Monday afternoon’s Downing Street press conference on coronavirus, did not say with whom he had been in contact.

In November, Boris Johnson had to self-isolate after a 35-minute meeting with a group of Conservative MPs from the Midlands and north of England in Downing Street, one of whom subsequently tested positive for Covid-19.

A photograph of the event showed Johnson, who was seriously ill with coronavirus in April, standing with the MP seemingly less than 2 metres apart, and neither wearing a mask.

Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, has had to self-isolate twice, once because of a family member, and then after a staff member in his private office tested positive for coronavirus. .

Hancock tested positive for Covid-19 in March, when he announced his diagnosis shortly after the prime minister revealed his own.

The health service’s website says the isolation period includes the day the individual was last in contact with the person who tested positive and the next 10 full days.