By Ben Kerrigan-
Sophie Morgan, a TV presenter with a spinal cord injury, has added her voice to the call for a public inquiry, which she said was needed “urgently”, after figures revealed that almost two-thirds of Covid-related deaths in the UK have been disabled people.
Morgan is said to be livid that disabled people have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic.
A source close to the star told The Eye Of Media.Com: Sophie is livid that so many disabled people have been affected by the virus. There has been much talk of BAME people being disproportionately by Covid-19, which is a shame, but how about disable people?
You would think they deserve the most protection because of their vulnerability, how could such a high proportion have been affected by the virus? Surely, they most of them must have been social distancing because the responsibility for ensuring social distancing is on their carers”.
Others who have added their voice to calls for an inquiry includes Film director Stephen Frears and the music producer and composer Talvin Singh have .
The calls comes after a group representing more than 2,800 bereaved families threatened legal action within weeks, unless prime minister Boris Johnson begins a statutory public inquiry.
The group want the power to subpoena witnesses and evidence and to examine the reasons the UK has the worst per capita death toll of any of the world’s largest economies.
The Eye Of Media.Com also pushed for an inquiry in a number of discussions with the British government late summer, and was told one would take place at some point in the future.
Downing Street also openly promised an inquiry into Covid-19 last year, but has recently said now is not the time for such an inquiry.
Both the housing secretary, Robert Jenrick, and the deputy chief medical officer, Jonathan Van-Tam, have suggested an inquiry may distract from the vaccination .
Downing Street promised an inquiry into Covid-19 last year, but has recently said now is not the time for such an inquiry.
A legal threat was submitted on Wednesday lunchtime by lawyers acting for the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group which has over 2,800 members. Its representatives, Elkan Abrahamson and Pete Weatherby QC have acted in major public inquiries including into the Hillsborough, Grenfell Tower and Manchester Arena disasters.
“With many of us approaching the anniversary of our loved one’s passing, believe me we’d rather be with our families than standing in court,” said Jo Goodman, co-founder of the group and who lost her 72-year-old father, Stuart, to the virus. “But if this government won’t listen and act, then that’s where they’ll be seeing us.”
Pressure
Pressure increased on Friday when the NHS Race and Health Observatory, set up by NHS England and the NHS Confederation to reduce ethnic and racial inequalities in healthcare, said it also wanted a “robust and comprehensive public inquiry”.
“The inquiry should consider immediate actions to tackle specific ethnic health inequalities exposed by the pandemic, and the responses that are potentially leading to their increase,” its director, Dr Habib Naqvi said.
Families of care home residents who died with Covid in the UK have also written to the prime minister demanding an inquiry saying “the emotional, physical and mental distress … demands recognition”.
So far two British media publications besides this one, have expressed support for an inquiry into Covid-19 deaths.
A spokesperson for The Guardian Newspaper told The Eye Of Media.Com: ” The call for an inquiry is growing phenomenally and it is only a matter of time before the British government may have to heed those calls”
Last month, The Daily Mail demanded an inquiry into complaints from bereaved families that their relatives had been wrongly diagnosed with Covid-19 . This was 2 months after the same publication revealed a warning from 500 academics in an open letter to Boris Johnson that official data was exaggerating the risk of Covid-19.
The prime minister promised last July there would be an “independent inquiry” but Downing Street’s current position is that “now is not the right time to devote huge amounts of official time to an inquiry”. Both the housing secretary, Robert Jenrick, and the deputy chief medical officer, Jonathan Van-Tam, have suggested an inquiry may distract from the vaccination programme.
Today children’s writer, Michael Rosen , called for an inquiry to focus in part on why the virus was allowed to take hold in the UK in February and March last year, saying that he suspected “the government were experimenting with herd immunity without vaccination”. He said he believed he was a victim of that experiment “as are thousands of people who died or are also suffering from long Covid”.
He said: “We desperately need an inquiry into how and why this lethal idea was taken seriously. We owe it to the dead and injured and we must learn from such a terrible mistake.”
TV presenter and Labour party peer Joan Bakewell said everything the NHS had controlled had done well but she was concerned about the money given to private companies. “[The government] handing out contracts to people who they know, that needs to be investigated,” she said.
Singh said an inquiry would aid transparency. “It is hard to explore and investigate for any individual as it feels like it’s a closed curtain in what is happening behind the stage and what decisions are being made for the future,” he said.
The UK’s four nations could launch their own inquiries and the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group wants “a joined-up approach to common questions and areas of evidence”.