Professor Sir Jonathan Van-Tam has revealed he received ‘extremely hateful messages’ he received during the pandemic, including a threat to his family about ‘having their throats cut’.
He said the hate mail, which led to the police getting involved, made him consider stepping down from his role as England’s deputy chief medical officer during the height of Coronavirus.
Sir Jonathan, who left his post at the end of March last year, told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry on Wednesday that while his job involved huge workloads and stress, he did not expect his family to be threatened.
Sir Jonathan said: ‘I did not expect the police to have to say: “Will you move out in the middle of the night or in the middle of the evening, whether you might move out for a few days, while we look at this and potentially make some arrests?”‘
He said his family did not make the move in the end because ‘we didn’t want to leave the cat’ but described the situation as stressful.
He added: ‘I make this point because I’m so worried that if there’s a future crisis, people will not want to sign up for these roles and these jobs, because of the implications that come with them.’
Sir Jonathan also spoke about this workload during the early days of the pandemic, saying: ‘At the beginning it certainly was in the kind of 16 hours a day mark and it certainly was seven days a week. It was very, very intense.’
Earlier this year, Sir Chris Whitty also spoke about the abuse experienced by scientists who were involved in the response to the Covid-19 outbreak, describing it as ‘extremely concerning’.
England’s chief medical officer told the inquiry back in June: ‘I do think that what occurred during Covid where the level of abuse and, in some cases, threat to people who volunteer their time, is an extremely concerning one.
‘We should be very firm in saying that society very much appreciates the work of these people, who put in considerable amounts of time, usually for no recompense.’
Last year a man was jailed for eight weeks after he admitted intending to cause Sir Chris distress when he approached him in June last year.
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