{"id":215377,"date":"2025-10-21T11:52:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T11:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/215377\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T11:52:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T11:52:09","slug":"covid-inquiry-live-updates-boris-johnson-gives-evidence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/215377\/","title":{"rendered":"Covid inquiry live updates: Boris Johnson gives evidence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New variant posed &#8216;significant&#8217; challenges for face-to-face learning, Johnson sayspublished at 11:54 BST<\/p>\n<p>11:54 BST<\/p>\n<p>      <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A school sports hall has been turned into a Covid testing area. There are several tables with people wearing full protective gear helping to administer tests, with a young boy in a black tracksuit completing a test.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/b214eb18-32b9-4e9a-b5dd-4f448208670d.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Returning now to Boris Johnson&#8217;s testimony, where counsel Claire Dobbin is grilling the former PM about the time period between December 2020 and January 2021 &#8211; when cases were again surging. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It&#8217;s important, she says, to hear Johnson&#8217;s perspective about this period, and presents him with a document &#8211; the Chair&#8217;s Brief from the Covid Operations Cabinet Committee on 16 December, 2020.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In it, it&#8217;s stated that Johnson gave a &#8220;strong steer&#8221; that he would like the return of face-to-face attendance at schools &#8220;to be staggered&#8221; and for testing to be used as fully as possible to support this. Dobbin adds that the document states this &#8220;is a major delivery challenge&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The document also notes that the education secretary had spoken to Johnson on the day and agreed which pupils would return to school in January, while acknowledging &#8220;significant delivery challenges&#8221; including workforce testing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Johnson says he remembers there were difficulties in &#8220;standing up the testing operation&#8221;. He recalls conversations about whether the army would be used or not, but it was concluded schools would do it.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A chart shows the number of people in hospital with coronvirus in the UK\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/194217e6-17b0-4311-bf00-d5bd85ae3784.png.webp.webp\"  width=\"976\" height=\"823\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image caption, <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The number of patients in hospital with coronavirus peaked in the week to 20 January 2021, at more than 38,000 people<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Counsel Dobbin moves now to a 28 December email from No 10. She says at this stage it&#8217;s &#8220;very clear&#8221; the new variant was driving transmission. Johnson agrees.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The email states that the education secretary had set out the social costs of reopening schools and outlined plans to return primary schools on 4 January, with secondary schools delayed to 18 January.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Johnson says that during that period, there were &#8220;tensions&#8221; over opening up and how fast, and the spread of the new variant.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Also in the email, the chief scientific adviser noted that it was known children do transmit and would spread the virus at home. He also noted that transmission went down during half term, suggesting school closures did have an effect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New variant posed &#8216;significant&#8217; challenges for face-to-face learning, Johnson sayspublished at 11:54 BST 11:54 BST Image source, Getty&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-215377","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}