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Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Inquiry hears of older people ‘cull' as Matt Hancock defends care home policies
Care home deaths felt like a 'cull of older people who could no longer contribute to the society', the UK Covid-19 inquiry has heard as Matt Hancock defended his handling of an 'impossible' situation. There were tense exchanges as the former health secretary returned to give evidence to the wide-ranging probe, this time focused on the adult social care sector. Mr Hancock, who resigned from government in 2021 after admitting to breaking social distancing guidance by having an affair with a colleague, responded to an accusation he had 'blatantly lied about the situation with care homes'. At a Downing Street press conference on May 15 2020, Mr Hancock said: 'Right from the start, we've tried to throw a protective ring around our care homes.' Bereaved families have previously called the phrase a 'sickening lie' and a 'joke'. The inquiry has heard there were more than 43,000 deaths involving the virus in care homes across the UK between March 2020 and July 2022, and a civil servant was quoted earlier this week describing the toll as a 'generational slaughter within care homes'. On Wednesday, remarks were read to the inquiry from an anonymous witness, who accused Mr Hancock of not being heartfelt or having a proper understanding of the situation care homes were in during the pandemic. Counsel to the inquiry Jacqueline Carey KC, who gave no further information on the person's identity or their role, said: 'One person in particular said 'He (Mr Hancock) blatantly lied about the situation with care homes, there was no blanket of protection. We were left to sail our own ships. He wasn't heartfelt. He had no understanding or appreciation of the challenges care homes face, pandemic or not, it felt like we were the sacrifice, a cull of older people who could no longer contribute to the society'.' Mr Hancock said he felt it was 'not helpful' for the inquiry to 'exchange brickbats' – a term used to describe a verbal attack. He added: 'I've been through everything that we did as a department, a big team effort, and we were all pulling as hard as we possibly could to save lives – that's what I meant by saying that we tried to throw a protective ring around. 'Of course, it wasn't perfect. It was impossible – it was an unprecedented pandemic, and the context was exceptionally difficult. 'What I care about is the substance of what we did, the protections that we put in place, and most importantly, what we can do in the future to ensure that the options available are better than they were last time.' He said the emphasis was on ''tried' – it was not possible to protect as much as I would have wanted'. He added that he and others were 'trying to do everything that we possibly could' in 'bleak circumstances' at a time when 'I also had (former government adviser) Dominic Cummings and a load of people causing all sorts of problems for me, and I had Covid'. Elsewhere in his evidence, Mr Hancock – who said one of his own relatives died in a care home but did not give further details – acknowledged the policy around discharging patients from hospital into care homes early in the pandemic was an 'incredibly contentious issue'. When the pandemic hit in early 2020, hospital patients were rapidly discharged into care homes in a bid to free up beds and prevent the NHS from becoming overwhelmed. However, there was no policy in place requiring patients to be tested before admission, or for asymptomatic patients to isolate, until mid-April. This was despite growing awareness of the risks of people without Covid-19 symptoms being able to spread the virus. The High Court ruled in 2022 that government policies on discharging hospital patients into care homes at the start of the pandemic were 'unlawful'. While the judges said it was necessary to discharge patients 'to preserve the capacity of the NHS', they found it was 'irrational' for the Government not to have advised that asymptomatic patients should isolate from existing residents for 14 days after admission. Asked about the policy, Mr Hancock said there were no good options, adding: 'It's the least-worst decision that could have been taken at the time.' Pressed further, he said he had both agreed with and defended the decision at the time. He added that 'nobody has yet provided me with an alternative that was available at the time that would have saved more lives.' He said while the policy had been a government decision, it had been 'driven' by then-NHS chief executive Sir Simon Stevens, now Lord Stevens. The inquiry heard Mr Hancock said in his witness statement that NHS England had 'insisted' on the policy, and while he did not take the decision himself, he took responsibility for it as then-health secretary. Asked about March 17 2020 when NHS bosses were instructed to begin the discharge process, Mr Hancock said officials were 'pushing very hard' to get more PPE (personal protective equipment) into care homes. He said not advising care homes to isolate returning residents without symptoms was a 'mistake', but it was in line with clinical guidance at the time. In 2023, appearing for a separate module of the inquiry, Mr Hancock admitted the so-called protective ring he said had been put around care homes early in the pandemic was not an unbroken one, and said he understood the strength of feeling people have on the issue. Mr Hancock's statement, referred to during Wednesday's hearing, said while there had been 'widespread concern' that patients being discharged from hospital were the main source of infection in care homes, 'we learned in the summer of 2020 that staff movement between care homes was the main source of transmission'. He told the inquiry he had wanted to bring in a ban on staff movement between care homes but that being unable to secure funding from the Treasury to compensate affected workers was a 'killer blocker' so it did not happen. Nicola Brook, a solicitor representing more than 7,000 families from Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK (CBFFJ), said Mr Hancock's claim that the discharge policy had been the least-worst decision available was 'an insult to the memory of each and every person who died'. The CBFFJ group has written to inquiry chairwoman Baroness Heather Hallett, to express their concern at some 'key decision-makers' not expected to be called in this module, including former prime minister Boris Johnson and Lord Stevens. Outlining the state of the adult social care sector at the outbreak of the pandemic, Mr Hancock said it 'was badly in need of, and remains badly in need of, reform', but rejected the suggestion of it being a 'Cinderella service to the NHS'. He said pandemic contingency plans, prepared by local authorities for adult social care, had been 'as good as useless' at the time, and described a 'hodge podge of accountability' between local councils and government departments. He claimed the situation has 'got worse not better' for care homes in the event of another pandemic hitting, and suggested a series of recommendations, including having isolation facilities in care homes and ensuring a stockpile of personal protective equipment (PPE). Hearings for module six of the inquiry, focused on the effect the pandemic had on both the publicly and privately funded adult social care sector across the UK, are expected to run until the end of July.
CNN
17 minutes ago
- CNN
Fact check: Trump lies again about gas prices, falsely claiming five states are at $1.99
The president's imaginary list keeps getting longer. In April, President Donald Trump claimed gas prices in 'a couple' unspecified states had just fallen to $1.98 per gallon. That wasn't even close to true. But the next day he said it was 'three states' that had just hit $1.98 per gallon, which also wasn't remotely accurate. Trump used the 'three' figure on multiple occasions in subsequent weeks, again with no factual basis. Then, during an immigration-focused visit to Florida on Tuesday, Trump made it five states with supposed sub-$2 gas. 'Gasoline just hit $1.99 today in five states – $1.99, isn't that a nice sound?' he said, adding moments later, 'We just hit, in five states, $1.99, $1.98.' Once more, this was a lie. The lowest state average price on Tuesday for a gallon of regular gas was about $2.71 in Mississippi, according to data published by AAA. The state with the fifth-cheapest Tuesday average, Louisiana, was at about $2.79 per gallon, per the AAA data. And the national average was about $3.18 per gallon, AAA reported. GasBuddy, a firm that tracks prices at tens of thousands of stations around the country, did not find a single station selling regular gas for below $2.26 per gallon on Tuesday. (There are sometimes individual drivers who get special discounts.) And GasBuddy's head of petroleum analysis, Patrick De Haan, told CNN that the last time his data showed any state average below $2 per gallon was more than four years ago, in January 2021, when demand was unusually weak because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The White House did not respond to CNN's Tuesday request to explain Trump's claim. The president has a long history of using inaccurate statistics even when he could make a similar point using accurate statistics. His false Tuesday boast was especially needless given that he could have correctly said that – as CNN reported in an article earlier in the day – gas prices for this Fourth of July weekend are expected to be the lowest for the holiday since at least 2021, according to GasBuddy.
19 minutes ago
Iran's president orders country to suspend cooperation with UN nuclear watchdog IAEA
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Iran's president on Wednesday ordered the country to suspend its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency after American and Israeli airstrikes hit its most-important nuclear facilities, likely further limiting inspectors' ability to track Tehran's program that had been enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels. The order by President Masoud Pezeshkian included no timetables or details about what that suspension would entail. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi signaled in a CBS News interview that Tehran still would be willing to continue negotiations with the United States. 'I don't think negotiations will restart as quickly as that,' Araghchi said, referring to Trump's comments that talks could start as early as this week. However, he added: 'The doors of diplomacy will never slam shut.' Iran has limited IAEA inspections in the past as a pressure tactic in negotiating with the West — though as of right now Tehran has denied that there's any immediate plans to resume talks with the United States that had been upended by the 12-day Iran-Israel war. Iranian state television announced Pezeshkian's order, which followed a law passed by Iran's parliament to suspend that cooperation. The bill already received the approval of Iran's constitutional watchdog, the Guardian Council, on Thursday, and likely the support of the country's Supreme National Security Council, which Pezeshkian chairs. 'The government is mandated to immediately suspend all cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency under the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons and its related Safeguards Agreement,' state television quoted the bill as saying. "This suspension will remain in effect until certain conditions are met, including the guaranteed security of nuclear facilities and scientists.' It wasn't immediately clear what that would mean for the Vienna-based IAEA, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog. The agency long has monitored Iran's nuclear program and said that it was waiting for an official communication from Iran on what the suspension meant. A diplomat with knowledge of IAEA operations, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the situation in Iran, said that IAEA inspectors were still there after the announcement and hadn't been told by the government to leave. Iran's decision drew an immediate condemnation from Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar. 'Iran has just issued a scandalous announcement about suspending its cooperation with the IAEA,' he said in an X post. 'This is a complete renunciation of all its international nuclear obligations and commitments.' Saar urged European nations that were part of Iran's 2015 nuclear deal to implement its so-called snapback clause. That would reimpose all U.N. sanctions on it originally lifted by Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers, if one of its Western parties declares the Islamic Republic is out of compliance with it. Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, and the IAEA doesn't have access to its weapons-related facilities. Iran's move so far stops short of what experts feared the most. They had been concerned that Tehran, in response to the war, could decide to fully end its cooperation with the IAEA, abandon the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and rush toward a bomb. That treaty has countries agree not to build or obtain nuclear weapons and allows the IAEA to conduct inspections to verify that countries correctly declared their programs. Iran's 2015 nuclear deal allowed Iran to enrich uranium to 3.67% — enough to fuel a nuclear power plant, but far below the threshold of 90% needed for weapons-grade uranium. It also drastically reduced Iran's stockpile of uranium, limited its use of centrifuges and relied on the IAEA to oversee Tehran's compliance through additional oversight. The IAEA served as the main assessor of Iran's commitment to the deal. But U.S. President Donald Trump, in his first term in 2018, unilaterally withdrew Washington from the accord, insisting it wasn't tough enough and didn't address Iran's missile program or its support for militant groups in the wider Middle East. That set in motion years of tensions, including attacks at sea and on land. Iran had been enriching up to 60%, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels. It also has enough of a stockpile to build multiple nuclear bombs, should it choose to do so. Iran has long insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but the IAEA, Western intelligence agencies and others say Tehran had an organized weapons program up until 2003. Israeli airstrikes, which began June 13, decimated the upper ranks of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard and targeted its arsenal of ballistic missiles. The strikes also hit Iran's nuclear sites, which Israel claimed put Tehran within reach of a nuclear weapon. Iran has said the Israeli attacks killed 935 'Iranian citizens,' including 38 children and 102 women. However, Iran has a long history of offering lower death counts around unrest over political considerations. The Washington-based Human Rights Activists group, which has provided detailed casualty figures from multiple rounds of unrest in Iran, has put the death toll at 1,190 people killed, including 436 civilians and 435 security force members. The attacks wounded another 4,475 people, the group said. Meanwhile, it appears that Iranian officials now are assessing the damage done by the American strikes conducted on the three nuclear sites on June 22, including those at Fordo, a site built under a mountain about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of Tehran. Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC analyzed by The Associated Press show Iranian officials at Fordo on Monday likely examining the damage caused by American bunker busters. Trucks could be seen in the images, as well as at least one crane and an excavator at tunnels on the site. That corresponded to images shot Sunday by Maxar Technologies similarly showing the ongoing work.
