The Problem Was We Weren’t Ready to Lock Down Hard Enough, Fast Enough, Matt Hancock Tells Covid Inquiry

3 min read

The central problem was that Government pandemic plans didn’t prepare us to lock down hard enough and fast enough, former Health Secretary Matt Hancock has told the Covid Inquiry this morning. The Mail has more.

Mr. Hancock lashed out at an “absolutely central problem” with Whitehall planning prior to 2020.

“The attitude, the doctrine of the U.K. was to plan for the consequences of a disaster – can we buy enough body bags, where are we going to bury the dead?” he told the inquiry.

“That was completely wrong. Of course it’s important to have that in case you fail to stop a pandemic but central to pandemic planning is how do you stop the disaster from happening in the first place, how do you suppress the virus?”

Previously, the inquiry has heard how ‘groupthink’ saw Britain spend more time on preparing for a flu pandemic rather than a widespread outbreak of another respiratory disease.

But Mr. Hancock insisted this was “not the main flaw” in U.K. preparations.

“My central point [is] that to say that the main problem with that plan was that it was a flu plan and there was [sic] and we ended up with a coronavirus pandemic is, of course, a flaw, but it is not the central flaw,” he added.

“If we’d had a flu pandemic, we would have had a massive problem because of the doctrinal failure of how to respond to it as well – that was a much bigger error, it was an error across the Western world, but it was a much bigger error and it is absolutely central.” …

The ex-Cabinet minister later said more should have been done to prepare for a lockdown prior to 2020.

He said: “It is central to what we must learn as a country that we’ve got to be ready to hit a pandemic hard: that we’ve got to be able to take action – lockdown action if necessary, that is wider, earlier, more stringent than feels comfortable at the time.

“And the failure to plan for that was a much bigger flaw in the strategy than the fact that it was targeted at the wrong disease.”

He added: ‘The doctrinal flaw was the biggest by a long way because if we’d had a flu pandemic, we still would have had the problem of no plan in place for lockdown, no prep for how to do one, no work on what, how best to lock down with the least damage.

“I understand deeply the consequences of lockdown and the negative consequences for many, many people – many of which persist to this day.”

If this Hancock doctrine becomes the main lesson the Inquiry and others take from COVID-19, we are doomed.

Worth reading in full.

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83 Comments
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MikeAustin
MikeAustin
3 years ago

So, Mr Midazolam Matt. I have been looking at midazolam prescriptions and comparing them with weekly deaths. In particular, I have looked at ‘excess’ midazolam prescriptions and excess weekly deaths.They correlate well.
Of course, a bit more detail, discussion and explanation is required, which have done in the Acrobat file on my Telegram Group: https://t.me/mikes_stuff/1178

ONSweekly-summary-midazolam.jpg
wryobserver
3 years ago

Apart from the fact that I don’t really understand Hancock’s doctrinal flaw argument the reason we are getting garbage like this is simple; the wrong questions are being asked.

Question 1: If a pandemic organism doesn’t kill people why do we need to lock down?
Question 2: Sweden did not lock down, and yet the death rate there was no worse than in the UK. Explain.
Question 3. If it does kill people, would it not be wise, as a first step, to work out why?
Question 4. If serious illness is a clinical issue, does it not make sense to have clinicians making the decisions?
Question 5: Why, when serious advice was offered at the beginning of 2020 (along these lines) why was it ignored?

I leave readers to answer for themselves, but if the answer given by Hancock to the last question was that there wasn’t any such advice I would brandish the letter(s) that I wrote in May 2020 and ask whether he has seen them, and if so why he never responded to them, and if he didn’t see them, who was responsible for hiding them from him. I personally offered my expertise; without wishing to… Read more »

VAX FREE IanC
VAX FREE IanC
3 years ago

Do they know that we know that this so-called COVID inquiry is a complete sham, simple ‘gesture politics’? If they did I wonder if they would try to prove us wrong by doing a ‘proper job’.
I for one can barely bring myself to read about what goes on there. Truly cringeworthy.

Kornea112
Kornea112
3 years ago

You can easily see the flaw in his thinking and attitude that lockdowns and other arbitrary measures, not based on any science, did not apply to him or any others of the ruling elites. He obviously did not think this applied to him as his promiscuity demonstrated nor to others who held party’s. International meetings of the elite rulers took place without precaution, unmasked while the servants were all masked. He is obviously saying this now trying to defend their destructive, unscientific actions.

JeremyP99
JeremyP99
3 years ago

Evil pieces of faeces. No wonder he raged at Sweden, as real world data shows clearly (+ Florida, and one of the Dakotas) that no Lockdown was just fine.

Why is Hancock not behind bars? The man is a clinical psychopath, as his glee in terrifying the nation demonstrated.

Epi
Epi
3 years ago

FFS just lock the F…er up and throw the key away. This excuse for a human being is responsible for the deaths of thousands and misery of millions. He’s done untold damage to future generations and his arrogance knows no bounds. The best part of him dribbled down his mother’s leg.

huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
3 years ago
Reply to  Epi

That’s more like it. 👍

Douglas Brodie
Douglas Brodie
3 years ago

Don’t forget Sweden which used a very light touch lockdown yet fared better than the UK.

huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
3 years ago
Reply to  Douglas Brodie

Although Sweden were still wholly bound up in the Scamdemic even though they knew the re-branded ‘flu was just that – ‘flu. Same tune, slightly different notes.

beaniebean
beaniebean
3 years ago

Has this man absolutely no capacity to read and understand the strong evidence against earlier and harsher measures? As for blaming the failures on preparations having been for a flu pandemic, the respiratory coronavirus required exactly the same ‘doctrine’ to be followed, not one made up on the hoof and conveyed via WhatsApp, based upon the CCP model.
Us mere mortals were confined to a lunatic asylum run by lunatics ably assisted by a band of ‘useful idiots’. The lunatics meanwhile appear to have been revelling in our distress and enjoying their new found power and celebrity status. Sadly they still appear to show no remorse and offer no meaningful apologies and we we are supposed to accept their weasel words bathed in hubris! Enough already!

Lockdown Sceptic
Lockdown Sceptic
3 years ago

Matt Hancock hard and fast with the truth.

I bet they never asked “If covid was so deadly why were you having an affair with someone else’s wife.”

Thursday 29th June 11am to 12pm 
Yellow Freedom Boards
Junction A3095 Warfield Road & 
Harvest Ride Warfield 
Bracknell RG42 2QH

Covid-1984
Covid-1984
3 years ago

Hancock couldn’t keep his **ck down but expected us to keep a lockdown. He’s finished is the takeaway from this fiasco.

RTSC
RTSC
3 years ago

Handcock knew full well that Covid was only dangerous to a small and easily identified proportion of the population.

That’s why it was downgraded to a Low Consequence Infectious Disease a week BEFORE the first lockdown …. because it had low mortality rates.

He lied, from the minute he opened his mouth.

Chiang Sa
Chiang Sa
3 years ago

I don’t believe that covid-19 was a respiratory illness. I believe it can lead to respiratory problems if not treated properly. I say that as an unvaccinated 63 year old chronic asthmatic who, along with my unvaccinated wife, apparently caught (PCR test) the ever so deadly Delta variant in 2021. I’ve had worse hangovers from a night out at the Top Rank Ballroom. For both of us, it was a mild illness all over in four days bar taste. Breathing not affected one jot.

This is a long story but I’ll cut it as short as I can. My younger brother caught pneumonia at the start of Easter 2022 (had it before) and was in a really bad way. I won’t name the hospital but he went in for a relatively straightforward problem with a known easy fix and before you know it he’s on a covid ward. He had to press them to find out what the plan was and it was Remdesivir. Despite enormous pressure from doctors he declined it in favour of traditional antibiotics (as previously). They were still pushing Remdesivir (all verbal) even after it was clear he was recovering rapidly on antibiotics.

He saw first-hand… Read more »

Richard Austin
Richard Austin
3 years ago

I think we all knew the outcome of this non-enquiry as soon as the WHO decided to become Dr Blofeld. The recommendation will be to sign the country over to the WHO as fast as possible and to force everyone to have any jabs deemed “safe” by the WHO. We’ll all be carrying ID with our entire lives on them within 3 years and within 10 a World Bank will dole out our vouchers for the month as long as we are good little boys and girls.

huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
3 years ago
Reply to  Richard Austin

Mostly correct although the target date is 2030.

Richard Austin
Richard Austin
3 years ago

You’d think he’d know the answer to “how do you stop the disaster from happening in the first place, how do you suppress the virus?” is “You can’t” by now wouldn’t you? It is not possible to prevent a virus spreading. You could, feasibly, lock the country completely and allow literally nobody onto these shores.
In order to do that you would have to know months in advance the virus was there and even then you’d be hoping. There is also the problem that there would be no end date to locking the country. You could not accept ships entering harbours, illegal immigrants gaily tipping up in their tens of thousands, no airplanes in or out. You’d have more people dying of starvation than the virus would have killed.
There is an idea: figure out how to stop the illegal immigrant virus first, small steps and all that.

Sontol
Sontol
3 years ago

The fundamental basis of the genuine libertarian / egalitarian / democratic approach is the spiritual-moral one – ‘Hate the sin, love the sinner’; in other words where necessary condemn ideas and actions whilst maintaining full respect for those upholding and carrying them out.

The outpouring of scapegoating hatred and personalised condemnation on this thread is just the mirror image of the ‘Lockdown, mask and vaccine dissidents are selfish, evil and responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands’.

To put this metaphorically it is as much a duty to defend Matt Hancock’s right to put forward his point of view in these areas as it is those of Dr Sunetra Gupta.

Then after listening to them to come to our own conclusions – the whole point of the concept of free speech and thought.

transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
3 years ago
Reply to  Sontol

Well I’m not a Christian so loving sinners isn’t something I strive to do. I don’t think I “hate” anyone, and I certainly don’t “hate” Hancock. But he has demonstrated a pattern of behaviour that tells me that if he’s in charge of things then he is quite likely to do things that will end up harming me and my family, so I don’t have a great deal of time for him and certainly do not “respect”.

As for him expressing his views, I’m more than happy for him to do so, but less happy that the state is spending £114+M of our money on doubling down on the evil that has been inflicted.

This isn’t about simple differences of opinion. I have no interest in dictating how Hancock should live his life, but he deployed the power of the state to ruin mine and that of my family. This is a war, a fight for the survival of the concept of individual freedom and responsibility against collectivism run amok.

Anyway, as I have posted below, Hancock is a bit player of little importance and the inquiry is part of the Big Lie and should simply be laughed out… Read more »

huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
3 years ago

Well that put Sontol back in his box. Cracking post tof. For me keeping my anger at bay when lying murderers such as Midazolam Mat start spouting means that I tend to go off on one.

Well done.

Sontol
Sontol
3 years ago

First of all I am not a Christian or member of any organised religion but do believe that we all have an eternal (and ultimately perfect) soul, which is why I couched my point in non-denominational spiritual-moral terminology (though I fully accept that using a biblical-type quotation could have lead to this confusion).

In any case my points were not directed at any of the many perfectly valid criticisms of Matt Hancock’s performance both as Health Minister and now during the Covid Inquiry present in this thread – I think that his and the state in general’s response to the novel coronavirus from early 2020 on was (and increasingly so) irrational, illiberal, dogmatic and long-term massively harmful in all sorts of ways, including health-related, and Mr Hancock’s doubling-down on the Lockdown narrative deserving of huge condemnation – but purely the unnecessary and unhelpful personalised aspects.

Apart from the general moral rule of universal respect (I obviously disagree with your contention that this needs to be somehow ‘earned’) it is ridiculous to single out individuals from amongst the tens of millions who supported the general tyrannical approach to COVID19 in this country alone, never mind the billions across the world.

What… Read more »

transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
3 years ago
Reply to  Sontol

I agree Hancock is a tiny part of the overall mechanism and that our ultimate goal must be to win the war of ideas. I didn’t find the posts especially vitriolic or personal but if some are then I would say it is understandable venting in the main and not of great significance. I think it’s more important to remember that the problem is much bigger than just one man, but equally if you seek high office you must accept a higher burden of responsibility.

I don’t think anyone is trying to “co-opt” anyone else- just stating our cases. The quality of debate varies but is in my experience pretty high for a largely unmoderated online forum.

Regarding “war”, they started it and I have to defend myself.

As for “respect”, I think it depends what you mean. Hancock has the same rights as I do but I don’t need to think he’s acting in good faith if the evidence points elsewhere.

Myra
Myra
3 years ago
Reply to  Sontol

I understand what you are saying and agree up to a certain point.
But respect has to be earned and works two-ways.
The way Hancock has smeared and ridiculed anyone with a different view (just watch his clip in Parliament discussing the Great Barrington Declaration) and the tone of his WhatsApp messages shows a man who is unable to debate and has no self-doubt.
That is why I have no respect for this man.

Mogwai
Mogwai
3 years ago

They have to get the predictable ”anti-vax” slur in at the end don’t they? Tossers!

”After he finished giving evidence, Matt Hancock approached the public gallery, attempting to apologise to families who lost loved ones in the pandemic – but it backfired.
Amanda Herring Murrell, whose brother Mark died in March 2020, said: “I wasn’t having any of it. I was like ‘No, don’t you even think about it, and I turned my back on him.’
“He was looking for forgiveness but I said ‘You’ll be forever looking for forgiveness because you’re not going to get it off the bereaved.'”
Recounting the exchange outside the inquiry, Ms Herring Murrell was shaking with emotion.
“He is absolutely disgraceful,” she told Sky News.
“Our loved ones died on his watch. And he should be held accountable.”
Mr Hancock left the inquiry to shouts of “murderer” by anti-vax protesters.”

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-inquiry-latest-matt-hancock-giving-evidence-on-uks-preparedness-for-pandemic-12898206

huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
3 years ago

https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/yeadon-delingpole-and-why-the-vaccines-could-never-have-been-safe/

Dr Mike Yeadon and James Delingpole discussing the vacc…apologies, injections.

Freddy Boy
Freddy Boy
3 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Listened to it yesterday 👍👏

Myra
Myra
3 years ago

Hancock is truly God-like.
He can stop pandemics and deploy variants at will….

Why this man is not in jail beggars belief.

Jabba the Hut
Jabba the Hut
3 years ago

Watching Hancocks mouth is the same as watching a cows arse exactly the same material is ejected.

DomH75
DomH75
3 years ago
Reply to  Jabba the Hut

Cow shit smells better.

Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
3 years ago

An affront to the realm of the sacred and a real euthanasia enthusiast. The sad reality is that many people agree with him and a substantial number wished for the lockdown to continue forever. If you look at deposed leaders: Nicolae Ceaujescu for example and his wife – as soon as they were stripped of the power of the state they looked like wretches. If we don’t accept that the system is the sickness then we are doomed. And we waste our time trying to find a political solution to a spiritual problem.

Hester
Hester
3 years ago

I am stunned that this creature can come out in public at all, after what he has done, the cruelty he metred out, the hubris, the sheer pleasure he took in hurting people, damaging them, his arrogance in openly feeling up his fellow adulterer in his workplace, when he was behind the rules imprisoning and fining people for seeing their families. He is disgusting a gollum creature who needs to be confined to the shadows where he came from.

JASA
JASA
3 years ago

He wrote an article in the Telegraph about 18 months ago where he said, clearly to justify the disastrous policies that were put in place, ‘there was no plan to follow’. Loads of people wrote in mentioning the Pandemic Preparedness Plan.

Yet again, here, he says, ‘The doctrinal flaw was the biggest by a long way because if we’d had a flu pandemic, we still would have had the problem of no plan in place for lockdown, no prep for how to do one, no work on what, how best to lock down with the least damage’.

There was a plan, you complete and utter moron and specifically for influenza and it specifically ruled out lockdowns. Why did it rule out lockdowns, because over many years, many experts concluded that lockdowns would not help and would probably do more harm than good. Yet, you didn’t know about its existence. Why not?

How do these people get to positions of such power and influence and not have any idea at all about anything. All MPs should have certain qualifications as standard and then specific qualifications for ministerial positions e.g. medical qualifications to be Health Secretary, Science and Maths qualifications for… Read more »

transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
3 years ago
Reply to  JASA

I don’t have any medical or scientific qualifications beyond Maths O Level but I spotted the fake. He is not educationally subnormal. Whitty and Vallance are well qualified. It’s not an intelligence problem, it’s an issue with character and incentives. It’s not incompetence. I wouldn’t employ Hancock as a project manager, because he doesn’t seem especially bright, but excellent execution is not what was required from HMG. All they had to do was say no and do more or less nothing.

JASA
JASA
3 years ago

I agree that all the government had to do was say no. You have inferred lots from what I wrote that simply wasn’t implied or certainly wasn’t meant to be.
The main point was that Hancock has repeatedly said that there was no plan, when there was. Any holder of a cabinet position should know about plans, protocols etc.

transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
3 years ago
Reply to  JASA

I think it’s pretty clear that he is saying there was no plan for lockdowns, which is true

They either panicked momentarily and then doubled down because they didn’t want to look silly or they knew it was nonsense from the start

Either way, it doesn’t look like incompetence to me

johnboy12
johnboy12
3 years ago

If a government & a particularly despicable former ‘Health Minister’ were prepared to destroy a generation of children, cripple the economy, and destroy a nation in the attempt to ‘Save Lives’ for a ‘virus’ that had a survival rate of 99.8%, then you know they are not acting in good faith and most likely with malicious, perhaps even evil, anti human intent.

Be ready for the next time they pull this…it has already been rehearsed…SERS-2025….

Heum…didn’t Deagle forecast a 77% reduction in the UK population by 2025? …..strange innit…

huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
3 years ago
Reply to  johnboy12

Thank you for making these points.

transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
3 years ago

Hancock is an unimportant cog in a bigger global machine. We should ignore him and focus on exposing the puppet masters.

transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
3 years ago

Presume the dislike is from a cock up theorist. Yeah, it was all just Hancock’s incompetence.

Sforzesca
Sforzesca
3 years ago

He knows the square root of F. all about virology as well as all matters medical. – and anything else it would seem.
Christ, there’s something wrong about our so called democratic system that enables idiots such as he to get in a position of power. He was our “Health Secretary” for God’s sake.
Think about that.
May he and his ilk rot in hell because there’s little reason to suppose bastards such as him will get their just desserts in this world.
We all meet our maker.
This inquiry is a F.ing joke.

Mogwai
Mogwai
3 years ago
Reply to  Sforzesca

Oh how I dearly wish the likes of Joel Smalley, Prof Fenton, Prof Martin Neil, Denis Rancourt or any of the many more trusted sources of truth diseminated via cold, hard data would be able to give evidence. They’d refute every single lie brazenly being spouted easily. I know we have Prof Heneghen but how many other truth-tellers? I just see a load of corrupt sociopaths that are paid to lie, manipulate and insult our intelligence.
Seriously, if just one person could ask one of the cretins why they didn’t just do as Sweden did, given how successful their non-controversial, ‘by the book’ approach was, then that would save everyone a great deal of time. Because now I feel that what we have is a very protracted and elaborate collective wangling out of taking responsibility and avoidance of being held to account, going round in convoluted circles, getting precisely nowhere.
And what we must remember is this; if these disgusting psychos can abuse us so readily and even enthusiastically during PsyOp19, they’ll obviously not hesitate in signing over all of our freedoms and personal liberties to the WHO without hesitation and even relish it. They enjoy it because they’re all… Read more »

NeilofWatford
NeilofWatford
3 years ago

Wow.
Hancock had too little control!
Megalomaniac.

RW
RW
3 years ago

The problem with Matt Hancock is that he still hasn’t been hit hard enough for long enough to understand that dragging other people needlessly through the shit (emerde) may sometimes even have negative consequences for corrupt politicians seeking to harm the population boundlessly(!) in the name of the mighty dollar. I deeply understand that this is really bad for people I don’t give a shit about! is not good enough, mate.

Shimpling Chadacre
Shimpling Chadacre
3 years ago

“I understand deeply the consequences of lockdown”

No, you don’t. You don’t understand anything. You’re a self-regarding intellectual runt whose station in a just world would be cleaning toilets. And you’d probably cock that up.

JohnK
JohnK
3 years ago

I’d replace the term intellectual with something else. I think he was an estate agent before he became an MP.

RW
RW
3 years ago
Reply to  JohnK

PPE degree, first briefly worked for his father’s software business, then housing marked economist at BoE, then advisor and chief of staff for Osborne, then career politician. Never worked during in all of his life would also capture it. Considering that this motormouth imbecile is also six years younger than me, I find that rather annoying. What kind of experience with anything does this Family relations rule! toad have that would qualify him to order others around? And why is he allowed to testify on issues completely outside of whatever feeble expertise he might have?

ebygum
ebygum
3 years ago

agreed…..and we are listening to anything this twat has to say because??

Matt Hancock and lover were at Downing St party on same day he told Brits to keep 2m apart
Former health secretary Matt Hancock is to be questioned in the next few days by senior civil servant Sue Gray, who is investigating whether members of the Government broke Covid restrictions at a series of parties

RW
RW
3 years ago
Reply to  ebygum

The problem is that the COVID inquiry is listening to what this trans health expert has to say despite his only notable accomplishment is that he hired his mistress as an aide so that she could to aid him in getting through those damn long and boring office days.

Matt Hancock has 72 genders and when he’s through with all of them, he’ll just start over. Nobody can tell if he was als born with a sex and if so, which it might be.

Vhilts
Vhilts
3 years ago

Tw*t. Don’t tell me “he acted on expert advice” tw*ts.
I can tell you the outcome of the ‘enquiry’ now.
Tories – insert any name you want to fit up, failed to protect the pubic from ‘naturally occurring’ virus…….

NeilParkin
NeilParkin
3 years ago

Hancock is a small and narrow minded bureaucrat, of limited ability, who despite not understanding what he was doing, or its consequences, went completely power crazy.

He was not alone, his other colleagues, spurred on by the media and supra-national bodies and other outside interference were absolutely the same. Total flap-wombles…

The Real Engineer
The Real Engineer
3 years ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

Surely he has now proved that he has zero ability in anything, and should be locked up for our safety?

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