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13th October 2021
04:49pm BST
According to the Office of National Statistics, in 2020, the UK had one of the highest rates of excess deaths in the world.
The UK recorded more excess deaths per million people than most other European countries and the US.
Responding to the data, at the time, Richard Murray, Chief Executive of The King’s Fund said: "In a pandemic, mistakes cost lives.
"Decisions to enter lockdown have consistently come late, with the government failing to learn from past mistakes or the experiences of other countries."
The UK is this week edging towards a death toll of 138,000.
Matt Fowler, co-founder of campaign group Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, who lost his 56-year-old father to Covid last April, said Hancock wasn't suitable for the job.
“Given Matt Hancock contributed to the 'worst UK public health failure ever' and was forced to resign after breaching his own social distancing measures, maybe he should take care of his obligations to those of us who lost loved ones to Covid-19 in the UK by making sure the evidence the forthcoming inquiry will need is available before taking on any new challenges," a statement from the group reads.
Responding to Hancock's appointment, Labour MP for Streatham Bell Ribeiro-Addy drew attention to the UK government’s refusal to lift patents on the Covid vaccine.
She tweeted: “Just 4.4% of people in Africa have been fully vaccinated.
“Matt Hancock belonged to a Government that has consistently blocked attempts to increase vaccine supplies to poor countries in order to protect pharmaceutical profits.
“This is insulting”.
On Tuesday evening, activists carried coffins to Downing Street, highlighting the UK Government’s blocking of vaccine patents.
Protestors believe withholding vaccine patents is leading to increased mortality in the global south.
Last year, South Africa called on the World Trade Organisation to suspend its enforcement of patents amid the pandemic.
Nick Dearden, director of the group Global Justice Now, which campaigns for jabs to be rolled out across the world, said: “Matt Hancock blocked international efforts to allow low and middle-income countries to produce their own Covid-19 vaccines, leading to millions of deaths in the global south.
There’s also the issue of care homes. During a Downing Street press conference on 15 May 2020, Hancock said: “Right from the start, we’ve tried to throw a protective ring around our care homes”.
Anecdotally, many know this not to be true.
In 2020, the UK recorded 26,200 excess deaths in care homes, proving the 'protective ring' failed to materialise.
Additionally, Tuesday's parliamentary report concluded that discharging people from hospitals into care homes without adequate testing led to many thousands of deaths that could have been avoided.
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