Fact checking Matt Hancock’s pandemic claims

30 November 2023

Matt Hancock MP is giving evidence to the Covid-19 Inquiry today.

Full Fact published many articles about claims he made as health secretary at the height of the pandemic.

Among these, Mr Hancock denied saying that the government threw a “protective ring” around care homes during the early stages of the outbreak, when in fact he did say this several times.

He claimed that the National Audit Office said there was never a national PPE shortage, which was not really what the NAO actually said.

We wrote about his and the government’s patchy record on claiming to meet testing targets, and about incorrect claims he made on the speed of testing and the performance of contact tracing. 

And we also checked claims Mr Hancock made about the evidence on long Covid, about the suicide rate during lockdown, and about when “lockdown” really began.

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