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A SENIOR government scientist allegedly branded Rishi Sunak “Dr Death” over his Eat Out to Help Out restaurant scheme during the Covid crisis.
Prof Dame Angela McClean made the remark in a WhatsApp, shown to the Covid inquiry today.
In the message sent to fellow expert Prof John Edmunds, she commented: “Dr Death the Chancellor.”
Prof Edmunds told the inquiry it could be a reference to Mr Sunak’s scheme which gave diners discounts in summer 2020.
The economy-boosting scheme gave diners discounts to eat in restaurants in the summer of 2020 after the first lockdown.
Research has since suggested the scheme fuelled the spread of the virus, which then rebounded.
It is thought that this caused a bigger, deadlier wave that winter.
Prof Edmunds said it “encouraged people to take an epidemiological risk”.
Mr Sunak became a household name after becoming Chancellor on February 13, 2020, just a month before the country went into lockdown over the coronavirus pandemic.
However he quit as Chancellor on July 5, 2022, stating that government needed “to be conducted properly, competently and seriously”.
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