UK GOVERNMENT MINISTERS contemplated ordering all domestic cats in Britain to be killed amid fears they could be spreading Covid, a former health minster has said.
James Bethell said the concern about pets underlined the desperation at the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020.
“What we shouldn’t forget is how little we understood about this disease,” he told Channel 4 News.
“There was a moment we were very unclear about whether domestic pets could transmit the disease.”
“In fact, there was an idea at one moment that we might have to ask the public to exterminate all the cats in Britain.
“Can you imagine what would have happened if we had wanted to do that?
“And yet, for a moment there was a bit of evidence around that so that had to be investigated and closed down.”
"There was an idea at one moment that we may have to ask the public to exterminate all the cats in Britain."
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) March 1, 2023
Former Health Minister Lord Bethell discusses the early government response to the Covid pandemic. pic.twitter.com/YWyp32zPML
According to the US Center for Disease Control, the risk of pets spreading Covid-19 to people is low.
James Bethell was Matt Hancock’s deputy in the Department of Health and Social from 2020 to 2021.
His comments came after The Daily Telegraph began publishing details of tens of thousands of leaked Whatsapp messages exchanged between Hancock and other senior figures during the pandemic.
Hancock was considering legal action while strenuously denying claims he rejected advice to give coronavirus tests to all residents going into English care homes while health secretary.
The former I’m a Celebrity contestant’s spokesperson said claims he rejected clinical advice on care home testing was “flat wrong” because he was told it was “not currently possible” to carry out the tests.
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