Hancock rejected plan to cut isolation
Minister said replacing 14-day quarantine with five days of tests would ‘imply we’ve been getting it wrong’
MATT HANCOCK rejected advice from the Chief Medical Officer to replace 14-day Covid quarantine with five days of testing because it would “imply we’ve been getting it wrong”.
Mr Hancock was told by Prof Sir Chris Whitty in November 2020 that it would be “pretty well as good” for people who had been in contact with a positive case to test for five days “in lieu” of a fortnight’s isolation.
Whatsapp messages between the two men also show that Mr Hancock asked: “So has the 14 day isolation been too long all this time?”
By then, nearly a million people in England who had come into contact with an infected person had been told to self-isolate for a full fortnight, even if they had no symptoms.
Although ministers reduced the selfisolation period to 10 days in December 2020, it was not until the following August that some groups were made entirely exempt from the requirement.
Sir Chris and other government advisers were “in favour” of trialling the alternative system by November 2020, but the then health secretary resisted, saying that it “sounds like a massive loosening” and that removing the quarantine requirement could make it appear that ministers had made a mistake.
The release of the messages about isolation come as other leaked Whatsapps reveal how Mr Hancock fought to take credit for the success of Britain’s vaccine campaign, telling colleagues: “Everyone knows I’m Mr Vaccine and this is the route out.”
He feared being overshadowed by others including the medicines regulator, saying that speeding up approval of jabs was a “Hancock triumph”.
Dame Kate Bingham, the vaccine tsar, was also criticised by Mr Hancock as “totally unreliable” and “wacky”, after she questioned the need to inoculate the entire population.
A former minister, MPS and scientific experts yesterday criticised the Project Fear narrative that has been exposed by The Lockdown Files, saying that the “psychological warfare” employed by ministers should never be repeated.
The Sunday Telegraph revealed yesterday that Mr Hancock wanted to “deploy” a new variant to ensure public compliance, while his team spoke about how best to use “fear and guilt”.
In the exchange with Mr Hancock on Nov 17 2020, Sir Chris said: “CMOS [chief medical officers] and Sage [the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies] in favour of a pilot with presumption in favour of testing for 5 days in lieu of isolation (alternative 10 days isolation). But needs a pilot to test this out and check it works and Mhra [the medines regulator] have not yet signed off for self use.”
Mr Hancock replied: “So test every day for just 5 days? That sounds like a massive loosening.” Sir Chris told him: “The modelling suggests it’s pretty well as good. And we think adherence likely to be good. The modellers were in favour of 3 days (given the lag time to get a result) but we were not in favour.”
Mr Hancock initially responded that he was “amazed”, but then, after questioning whether it meant that the 14-day isolation period may have been “too long all this time”, he again pushed back against the scientific advice.
He asked Sir Chris: “So has the 14 day isolation been too long all this time?”
The Chief Medical Officer responded that self-isolating for a fortnight was only “marginally safer” than 10 days, and this tiny benefit came “certainly at the expense of reduced adherence”, concluding: “So it probably balances out.”
Mr Hancock replied: “I think moving to 7-day daily testing for contacts would be HUGE for adherence, but going below that would seriously worry people and imply we’d been getting it wrong.” Sir Chris replied saying that he would “go back” and speak to the other chief medical officers, adding that he thought they would be “sympathetic” to Mr Hancock’s concerns.
By the summer of 2021, mandatory isolation for contacts had led to the socalled “pingdemic”, when more than 600,000 people a week had to stay at home after the NHS Test and Trace app on their mobile phones alerted them to close contact with a Covid case.
The app was so sensitive that neighbours were reportedly being “pinged” through walls.
Industries, including manufacturing, hospitality, transport, and healthcare, were thrown into chaos, and the Government was forced to release some critical workers from the policy in a bid to keep trains running and to avoid food shortages. By the time self-isolation was dropped in February 2022, more than 20 million people had been told to self-isolate.
Mr Hancock has always claimed that he was “guided by the science” when making policy decisions that curtailed people’s freedom.
The messages about isolation are from six months after the 14-day selfisolation rule was introduced, and two months after it was enshrined in law.
From May 28 2020, when NHS Test and Trace was launched, to the day when the message was sent, 923,656 people in England had been told to stay at home for a full fortnight.
Many workers lost out on pay while they were waiting for the all-clear.
From after the message was sent, to Aug 16 2021, when exemptions from self-isolation were announced, more than eight million people were identified as contacts of positive cases and told to stay at home.
The Whatsapp conversation seen by The Telegraph shows Mr Hancock repeatedly pushing back against scientific advice that could have averted some of the chaos. Presented with the news that chief medics believed that the 14-day isolation period could be removed and replaced with five days of testing – provided the medicines regulator signed off on at-home testing – he said: “This sounds very risky and we can’t go backwards”, and then asked, “wouldn’t test every day for ten days be a safer starting point?”
Sir Chris replied: “We could push out to 7 but the benefits really flatten off after 5. We would expect symptomatic people to get a pcr test as normal.”
The self-isolation period was shortened to 10 days on Dec 14 2020, the same day that Mr Hancock announced the existence of the so-called Kent variant of Covid and said that cases of this new strain were “increasing rapidly”.
Despite this change, disruption caused by the self-isolation policy escalated in 2021, as thousands of workers every day were “pinged” by the NHS Covid-19 app and told to stay at home.
By July that year, almost a third of people said that they had removed the app from their phone, according to a Telegraph poll. A daily testing pilot for contacts was launched in May 2021. This allowed some people identified as close contacts to take daily tests for seven days rather than isolating.
However, it was not offered to people contacted through the NHS app.
From Monday Aug 16, people who were double jabbed, or aged under 18 and six months, were no longer legally required to self-isolate if they were identified as a close contact of a positive case. Everyone else was legally mandated to self-isolate or risk a fine of at least £1,000.
The requirement to self-isolate was only removed entirely in February 2022. A year earlier, scientists at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine published a study in The Lancet Public Health that examined whether “test to release” could reduce or replace quarantine for contacts of positive cases. They found that – provided all tests were returned negative – releasing contacts on day seven, or daily testing for five days without quarantine, were both as effective at preventing the spread of the disease as making people self-isolate for the full 14 days.
AT POINTS during the pandemic, more than 600,000 people a week who had been in close proximity to a Covid case were being told to quarantine for 10 days.
In total, the policy resulted in more than 20 million people – a third of the entire population – being told to self-isolate, regardless of whether they had symptoms. Now Whatsapp messages seen by The Daily Telegraph show that a proposal to replace that with five days of testing had been in the ether as early as November 2020 – but was not put in place.
The Lockdown Files show that Matt Hancock, the then health secretary, was told by England’s Chief Medical Officer that they could change the policy in “favour of testing for 5 days in lieu of isolation”. At that stage, isolation was 14 days.
But instead of taking Sir Chris Whitty’s advice, Mr Hancock rejected the idea – fearing that it would “imply we’d been getting it wrong”.
Switching to a five-day testing regime would have transformed the way the country was able to operate during the pandemic.
A month after Sir Chris gave his advice, isolation was reduced to 10 days, which continued to wreak havoc on businesses and services.
By the summer of 2021, so many people were sent automated “pings” by the NHS Test and Trace app telling them to stay at home that restaurants and other businesses were forced to close through lack of staff. The app proved to be so sensitive that neighbours were being pinged through walls, leading large numbers of people to delete the app in frustration. The Government ended up having to exempt some key workers from self-isolating to prevent the NHS and critical food supply chains from collapsing.
In August 2021, those who were under the age of 18 years and six months and those who were fully vaccinated no longer had to isolate if they were a close contact. But it took until Feb 2022 for self-isolation guidance for contacts of positive Covid cases to be scrapped altogether, by which time NHS Test and Trace had cost the taxpayer around £26billion.
Now Whatsapp messages reveal for the first time the conversations that were going on about the policy behind the scenes.
The chief medical officer and the Government’s scientific advisory body, Sage, were all in favour of trying to reduce the policy before the “pingdemic” had even begun.
Matt Hancock
Where are we on test-to-release or repeattest-to-release?
[17/11/2020, 10:18:42]
Chris Whitty
CMOS [Chief Medical Officers] and sage [the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies] in favour of a pilot with presumption in favour of testing for 5 days in lieu of isolation (alternative 10 days isolation). But needs a pilot to test this out and check it works and Mhra [Medicines and healthcare products regulatory agency] have not yet signed off for self use.
[17/11/2020, 10:25:29]
Matt Hancock
So test every day for just 5 days? [17/11/2020, 10:28:03]
Matt Hancock
That sounds like a massive loosening [17/11/2020, 10:28:17]
Chris Whitty
The modelling suggests it’s pretty well as good. And we think adherence likely to be good. The modellers were in favour of 3 days (given the lag time to get a result) but we were not in favour.
[17/11/2020, 10:29:28]
Matt Hancock
I’m amazed. This sounds very risky and we can’t go backwards – wouldn’t test every day for ten days be a safer starting point [17/11/2020, 10:30:39]
Chris Whitty
We could push out to 7 but the benefits really flatten off after 5. We would expect symptomatic people to get a pcr test as normal
[17/11/2020, 10:32:19]
Matt Hancock
amaziing [17/11/2020, 10:32:41]
Matt Hancock
so has the 14 day isolation been too long all this time?
[17/11/2020, 10:33:08]
Chris Whitty
14 days is marginally safer than 10 (4% absolute is the modelled estimate) but almost certainly at the expense of reduced adherence
[17/11/2020, 10:34:44]
Chris Whitty
So it probably balances out [17/11/2020, 10:35:09]
Matt Hancock
fair enough. So, I think moving to 7-day daily testing for contacts would be HUGE for adherence, but going below that would serious worry people and imply we’d been getting it wrong. Presumably we can explain some of the shorter period because the test would pick up the disease before symptoms [17/11/2020, 10:36:52]
Chris Whitty
Ok I will go back to the CMOS I think they will be sympathetic to this. [17/11/2020, 10:43:22] What happened as a result of the conversation remains unclear. On December 14, almost a month later, the quarantine period was reduced from 14 days to 10 for both contacts of positive cases and travellers returning from countries not on the travel corridor list.
A day later, a “test to release” programme was introduced which allowed travellers who were isolating to buy tests privately to shorten their quarantine period to five days.
Most contacts of positive cases were not made exempt from the 10-day self-isolation until Aug 2021. The isolation policy was finally scrapped in February 2022.
Whatsapp messages leaked to The Daily Telegraph show that Mr Hancock had been raising questions about the isolation period as early as Aug 2020, less than three months after Test and Trace was launched.
At this point in the pandemic, the fortnight-long quarantine applied to both contacts of Covid cases and returning travellers. The policy caused havoc for holidaymakers and split up families for months, with most people unable to take an extra fortnight off work to quarantine on return.
On Aug 5, messages from the then health secretary to the “MH Top Team” Whatsapp group appear primarily concerned with the self-isolation restrictions placed on people returning to the UK from abroad, rather than those on close contacts of people infected with the virus. The group included his aides and officials from his private office.
Mr Hancock asked: “Where are we up to on test & release and also high net worth quarantine exemptions?”
Replying to this point, a senior civil servant said: “On test and release expecting update today – on high net worth BEIS [Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy] lead but we’ve asked for it to be picked up in the review process.”
When Mr Hancock returned to the issue two weeks later, this time he asked only about the policy that applied to “high net worth” business people.
Matt Hancock
Do we have an update on quarantine exemption for a business traveller who is willing to stay in a bubble when here? [18/08/2020, 13:08:27]
Civil servant
Advice is coming – although we understand BEIS is not that supportive and concerned very difficult to define. [18/08/2020, 13:19:11]
At this point, Emma Dean, one of his aides, interjected to ask Mr Hancock to “clear” a quote on Leicester, which was only just being released from lockdown because of higher rates of the virus in the area.
The message contained the instruction to “isolate if NHS Test and Trace tells you to”.
Emma Dean
Matt are you happy with this quote for Leicester PN [18/08/2020, 13:39:57]
Emma Dean
“My gratitude goes out to the people of Leicester who have all made sacrifices to keep the virus at bay and protect their local communities.
“The rate of infection has now dropped to a safe enough level to allow further businesses including beauty salons, nail bars and some outdoor venues to reopen in the area. Current restrictions on gatherings must remain in place to further bring down the rate of infection.
“We must remain vigilant, and I urge everyone in Leicester to continue to follow the rules – wash your hands regularly, follow social distancing, get yourself a free test as soon as you get any symptoms, and isolate if NHS Test and Trace tells you to.” [18/08/2020, 13:39:58]
Matt Hancock
Cleared
[18/08/2020, 13:41:23]
Having approved the statement, Mr Hancock returned to the issue at hand – lifting travel restrictions for “high net worth individuals”. The former health secretary appeared surprised to hear that the policy had not been given the green light by the business department.
Matt Hancock
Bizarre given they’re normally v pro economy [18/08/2020, 13:41:42]
Civil servant
I know! [Redacted] thinks its just difficult to define and therefore risks unravelling and also potential comms risk about only exemptions for high net worth individuals. [18/08/2020, 13:47:15]
Emma Dean
[18/08/2020, 13:49:23]
Getting testing at the border sorted is much more important
Matt Hancock
Until testing at the border can reduce quarantine substantially (not just to ten days) both will be needed [18/08/2020, 13:59:14]
Ms Dean’s concern that there might be a “comms risk” associated with the policy to release only wealthy business travellers from self-isolation proved to be correct.
When news leaked in Nov 2020 that the Government planned to exempt City dealmakers, hedge fund managers and company bosses flying to the UK from the 14-day quarantine rule, the public was furious.
At 10.32pm on Oct 24, Mr Hancock sent a screenshot of an article in The Telegraph to a Whatsapp chat labelled “CSA-CMO-MATT-PM-DOM”.
The group contained Sir Chris; Sir Patrick Vallance, the Chief Scientific Adviser; Boris Johnson; and Dominic Cummings, then the prime minister’s chief adviser. It also contained Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary.
The Telegraph article, citing a “No 10 source”, said that ministers were considering halving the mandatory 14-day isolation period for contacts of positive cases due to fears over “compliance”.
Mr Hancock appeared to have been unaware of the proposed policy change.
Mr Case replied in the early hours of Oct 25, explaining that it might not be “an issue” that this easing of the quarantine restrictions had been briefed to the papers, apparently by Downing Street.
He suggested that the story distracted from a “hatchet job” that Sir Bernard Jenkin had done on “Dido and team” – referring to Baroness Harding – after the Tory MP wrote in The Telegraph about a “vacuum of leadership” at the heart of the testing programme.
It would also, he implied, take the heat out of the “briefed/leaked” news that ministers were looking to make “execs/high net worth individuals” exempt from travel quarantine.
Mr Case said “We look completely crackers for looking at how to get rich people across our borders but not looking at how we make it easier for ordinary people in this country to follow isolation rules!”
Matt Hancock
[Shares images of Telegraph story ‘Isolation for test and trace could be halved’] [24/10/2020, 22:32:55]
Simon Case
We are doing this work, Matt. We have to understand whether asking people to isolate for 7 days (and test-to-release) improves compliance over our current 14 days. At the moment, compliance is very low and we need to look at why. We were told people couldn’t afford to isolate – so money has been put up for it but take-up seems to have been very low. We have to look at whether reducing the isolation period (and testing to release) makes it easier for people to comply with isolation.
[25/10/2020, 02:11:29]
Simon Case
I personally don’t believe it is a issue that it is known we are doing this work. I’d rather people were focused on this rather than the Jenkin et al hatchet job on Dido and team. Furthermore, someone has briefed/leaked the Covid-o decision from last week that we are looking at quarantine exemptions for execs/high net worth individuals. We look completely crackers for looking at how to get rich people across our borders but not looking at how we make it easier for ordinary people in this country to follow isolation rules! [25/10/2020, 02:21:07]
Dominic Cummings
Agree [25/10/2020, 07:26:36]
Matt Hancock
Couldn’t agree more about all the leaks. But we have to be careful about this stuff. If we make a change it should be framed as based on clincial evidence – not based on failure to isolate.
[25/10/2020, 07:46:02]
In his reply to Mr Case on Oct 25, Mr Hancock did not seem opposed to the idea that quarantine for contacts of positive cases could be halved. He simply wanted the change to be “framed as based on clinical evidence – not based on failure to isolate”.
It is unclear if he or anyone at No 10 had received such evidence at the time.
But a month later, on Nov 17 2020, Mr Hancock did receive scientific advice in favour of loosening restrictions on self-isolation for people contacted by NHS Test and Trace from Sir Chris.
Mr Hancock, however, was worried at the time about how the move would play out with the public.
In his Pandemic Diaries memoir, Mr Hancock said that on Nov 17 he was “pushing hard to reduce isolation periods for people who test negative using lateral flow kits.
“Annoyingly, this needs cooperation from the MHRA [Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency], who are currently refusing to sign it”, adding “Basically, they don’t like the idea of DIY testing.”
By the time the self-isolation requirement was removed on Feb 24 2022, 26.4 million people had been told to self-isolate in England.
Support payments totalling £224million were given to 448,000 people on low incomes who were unable to work because of the self-isolation period.