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Dr Clive Dix attacks former health secretary, calling him "the toughest of all ministers" Matt Hancock wanted to 'scare the pants off' the public with a new strain of Covid, leak claims The former head of the vaccine task force called Matt Hancock "a bit of a headless chicken" as new messages surfaced in leaked WhatsApp correspondence from the former health secretary.
Dr Clive Dix, former chairman of the Vaccine Task Force, used a Telegraph article to call Mr Hancock "the most difficult of all ministers because he didn't take the time to understand anything".
“He was everywhere, like a headless chicken. He often made statements saying “we are going to do X and we want the world to know it”, but we are faced with an uncertain situation to push vaccines.
“The manufacturing process was brand new and any process like this is fraught with hurdles, which we have to overcome as we go forward, but normally I would spend two or three years testing something like this.
"Hancock would set deadlines saying things like 'we're going to vaccinate the entire population,' and those deadlines drove his behavior."
The rebuke from the former president is the latest blow to Hancock after the Telegraph published a leaked portion of the former health secretary's correspondence.
The posts were shared with the newspaper by journalist Isabel Oakeshott, who co-wrote Hancock's memoir, The Pandemic Diaries, which covered his time as health secretary.
The latest posts show Mr Hancock criticizing vaccine zara Dame Kate Bingham after she used an interview with the Financial Times to claim that vaccinating everyone in the UK "wouldn't happen" and that the country would simply he had to "Vaccinate all people at risk." . .
Exchanges from October 2020 show him saying that she "has a vision and a weird way of saying it and is completely unreliable."
"She views anything that isn't her idea as political interference."
Hancock also complained in February 2021 about Dame Kate and Dr Dix, who took over the presidency after the end of their six-month term, amid concerns over UK access to the Serum Vaccine Institute of India. .
A Hancock spokesperson said: "As we have seen all week, these stories are not true as they are based on a completely biased account.
“In the case of vaccines, Matt's goal was to vaccinate everyone, often against systemic resistance. In the end, it prevailed, thank God, and we got the world's first vaccine, for everyone. Matt described all this in his book.
Dr Dix lashed out at the former health secretary, accusing him of "going crazy" before trying to get doses from India.
The UK got safe doses of vaccines from the Serum Institute of India in 2021, but Dr Dix said he had serious concerns about the plan.
"When we said that AstraZeneca's vaccine had manufacturing problems, that's when Hancock freaked out," Dr. Dix wrote.
"He didn't believe us. We were working day and night to make it work and he would turn around and say: 'I said the entire British population would be vaccinated.'
I don't think he understood the process. He was a loose cannon
“But we couldn't change the nature of the process and he didn't understand it. He thought it was like the supply. That's where his behavior comes from.
“They panicked and that led them to go to India and bring vaccines to the developing world.”
Dr Dix, writing after the leaked WhatsApp messages, said it is "certainly extraordinary how hypocritical they are".
“We were working as hard as we could and he thought he could come in and make a bold statement to the public and tell us that we have to do it. I don't think he understood the process. It was a loose cannon.
"The task force was in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and that's where the budget came from. We briefed Alok Sharma and then Nadhim Zahawi came in because Vaccine Minister Hancock wanted to get involved and because he was Secretary of State, Alook withdrew.
“He was using the vaccine to protect his reputation. We had no ego, we only did this because the country needed vaccinations. I worked for nine months from 4 am to midnight without any pay to do this.
A Dame Kate spokesperson told the Telegraph: 'These WhatsApps suggest that Matt Hancock was unaware of the government's agreed and published vaccine procurement policy, did not read the reports on the work of the vaccine task force and did not understand the difference. between complex biological manufacturing and the supply of PPE.
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