Boston-born Sir Jonathan Van-Tam speaks at Covid-19 inquiry, saying his family had their lives threatened

The former deputy chief medical officer (DCMO) discussed the subject on Wednesday (November 22) as he answered questioned at the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.

Prof Van-Tam achieved national recognition during the pandemic for his appearances at televised Government press conferences.

As part of his witness statement, he said: “There were occasions when I received extremely hateful messages from the public by email and on one such occasion, following receipt of emails that responded to a media appearance I had made, I felt the need to escalate the matter to the police.”

Discussing the personal impact of his DCMO role at the inquiry, he said his family were ‘threatened with having their throats cut’.

Police, he said, asked if they would move out of their home while they investigated the matter. This, he said, did not happen as they did not want to leave their cat.

“It was a very stressful time indeed,” he continued. “And, you know, my family didn't sign up for that. I only make this point because I'm so worried that if there's a future crisis, people will not want to sign up for these roles and these jobs, because of the implications that come with them.”

He preceded these comments, however, by thanking the ‘vast, vast, vast majority of the public’ who when he meets them are ‘just supportive and grateful’, saying: “I deeply appreciate that.”

Other matters covered during his appearance included the timeliness of the initial measures to combat the spread of Covid-19.

He said: “With the benefit of hindsight I think I reflect that these measures would have all been better kind of certainly seven days earlier than they were, possibly a little longer than that.”

The controversial Eat Out to Help Out scheme, announced in July 2020 by Rishi Sunak, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, was also addressed.

Prof Van-Tam said he was ‘absolutely not’ involved with the scheme and if he had been consulted about it, would have said ‘this is exactly encouraging what we have been trying to suppress and get on top of in the last few months’.

“It didn't feel sensible to me,” he added.