LONDON — Public Health England’s COVID Response Director Susan Hopkins privately said last December that U.K. ministers including Health Secretary Matt Hancock were pursuing “science by press release,” in a series of emails seen by POLITICO’s London Playbook.
Hopkins and other senior COVID experts shared their frustration in response to an email chain started on December 14, when Hancock announced the emergence of a new variant of the coronavirus discovered in the U.K., taking many top health professionals by surprise. “I can’t see anything on the usual channels,” David Farren, an infection control doctor based in the Northern Health and Social Care Trust, said in the email chain.
“This is part of the new ‘science by press release’ that has become the norm,” replied National Health Service microbiologist Michael Kelsey.
Hopkins responded: “Science by press release is correct.” She added that Public Health England wouldn’t be able to brief scientists on the new variant for another 24 hours.
But a spokesperson for the agency denied that was a jab at the government. “Dr. Hopkins was absolutely not criticizing the government,” the spokesperson said.
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