Jonathan Van-Tam urged to flee home by police after his family received death threats during the pandemic, Covid Inquiry told

Jonathan Van-Tam was urged to flee his home by police after his family received death threats during the pandemic, the Covid inquiry heard.

England's former deputy chief medical officer – who quit his role in March 2022 — became a household name during the Government's response to the health emergency and is known for his calm demeanour and regular use of analogies.

But being thrust into the public eye as the UK battled soaring coronavirus infections meant JVT, as he is affectionately known, was also on the receiving end of violent messages as he sought to explain the science behind government decision-making.

He told the probe: 'I did not expect my family to be threatened with having their throats cut.

'I did not expect the police to have to say: "Will you move out in the middle of the night? Will you move out for a few days while we look at this and potentially make some arrests?"'

Sir Jonathan, who was knighted last year, said with his trademark humour that his family did not leave their home 'because of the cat', but added: 'It was a very stressful time. And my family didn't sign up for that.'

He said he referenced the ordeal in his witness statement because of concerns experts may have in any future pandemic.

'I only make this point because I'm so worried that if there is a future crisis, people will not want to sign up for these roles and these jobs because of the implications that come with them,' he said.

Also called JVT by colleagues, Sir Jonathan became a regular figure on TV screens throughout the lockdown, as he imparted his expertise knowledge during some of the daily coronavirus conferences. 

The Boston United fan was famed for his memorable metaphors, such as comparing Covid to a 'goalkeeper that can be beaten' and the vaccine rollout to the 'glide path to landing this plane'. 

He sparked panic and worry across the UK in the early days of the Covid crisis, when admitting that the country may have to 'live with' the virus for years before a vaccine was found.

He also hit headlines in December, 2020 when he warned that Brits may wear face masks for years to come — even after a successful coronavirus vaccine became available. 

Covid inquiry chairman Baroness Heather Hallett previously condemned thugs and trolls who subjected top scientists to abuse during the pandemic.

She made the unusual intervention to comment on evidence given to the inquiry in June after Professor Sir Chris Whitty warned 'extremely concerning' threats and intimidation from members of the public risked dissuading experts from helping in a future health crisis.

The harassment of Sir Chris and other prominent scientists also came amid a surge of conspiracy theories about the virus.

Last year, a thug who jeered at Sir Chris while he was held in a headlock was jailed for eight weeks and ordered to pay £1,058 in costs and compensation.

Jonathan Chew, 24, approached England's chief medical officer as he walked through St James's Park in Westminster on June 27 last year.

Lady Hallett, told Sir Chris she was 'astonished and sorry' to hear of the abuse.

She added: 'It’s wrong for so many reasons, but I do know how distressing it can be so I hope that people will think twice - but of course they never do, do they? – before committing themselves to distressing acts unnecessarily.

'There are so many different ways to express different opinions, why do we have to have personal abuse?'

Sir Jonathan also told the inquiry today that he was overwhelmed by the 'horrendous' and 'very, very intense' workload at the start of the pandemic, during which he was working up to 16 hours a day, seven days a week.

In further revelations, he admitted that lockdown measures introduced in March 2020 'could have been earlier'.

He said: 'My kind of instinct reaction was "not a day too soon".

'With the benefit of hindsight, I think I reflect that these measures would have all been better certainly seven days earlier than they were, possibly a little longer than that.

'So somewhere in the kind of seven to 14 day window, that would have been perhaps a bit more timely.'

Asked by Baroness Hallett if there was 'a chance we could have avoided the mandatory lockdown or is it impossible to say?' he also said: 'I think it’s largely impossible to say.

'But I think, for me the balance of probabilities, looking at just how infectious this virus was proving to be in places like Italy, France, that there were just almost certainly no alternatives.

'My view is that we would have first run out of high intensity care beds.

'And it is possible within a couple of weeks, if we had not acted when we did, that we would have reached a position where the number of people requiring (hospital) admission with Covid — severe enough to require hospital care — could not have been admitted.

'With some pretty awful potential considerations at that point.'

Sir Jonathan also admitted he signed a letter to the Cabinet Secretary warning of the risks of reopening the country after the first national lockdown to 'leave a mark in the sand'.

The letter to Simon Case in May 2020 came as ministers were eager to ease restrictions.

He added: 'There was a risk that if you kind of rebuild and get a lot of momentum, you would then enter the next wave from a fairly high level, and therefore have less warning and therefore more consequences.' 

Asked by Hugo Keith KC, the inquiry's chief lawyer, why this was necessary, Sir Jonathan responded: 'Because people like you have come back to it now.'

He added: 'And it's kind of on record that I was concerned enough to write a formal letter to the Cab Sec [Cabinet Secretary] at this point, because of those concerns that I've already relayed to you in the room.'

'As I said, to lay down a trail in writing that was incontrovertible that we wanted to say that this needed to be taken very carefully.'

Pressed on his response, Baroness Hallett asked if that suggested his oral advice was not being taken sufficiently seriously. 

Sir Jonathan responded: 'I think it could partly suggest that.

'But it could also partly reflect the kind of fragmentation of decisions across different sectors and therefore, possibly, the Cab Sec not being an epidemiologist — that I'm aware of — not being able to crystalise the net result of those individual sector liftings.'

Addressing the probe today, he also said that while Public Health England's systems may be 'extremely' accurate, it provides data in the current moment rather than offering a prediction in the future.

This means there is 'massive uncertainty' with its risk assessments. 

'It doesn’t give any flavour to the less experienced reader about what the possibilities might be,' he added.