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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Peter Walker, Political correspondent

Matt Hancock’s WhatsApp messages: what he said v Covid context

Matt Hancock and Chris Whitty arrive for a Cobra meeting at the Cabinet Office in London on 9 March 2020.
Matt Hancock and Chris Whitty arrive for a Cobra meeting at the Cabinet Office in London on 9 March 2020. Photograph: unreguser/Xinhua News Agency/PA Images

With lockdowns and enforced distancing a fading memory for many, and masks a relatively rare sight, it can be tricky to view the revelations from a horde of Covid-era government messages in the context of the time in which they were sent.

Below are five stories from the 100,000-plus WhatsApps passed by Matt Hancock to the journalist Isabel Oakeshott, who handed them on to the Daily Telegraph, and a reminder of where the UK was, clinically and politically, amid the progress of the pandemic.

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