Chris Whitty Tells Inquiry He Worries Danger of COVID-19 Was ‘Overstated’

Chief Medical Officer Sir Chris Whitty told the UK’s Covid-19 Inquiry that messaging at the start of the outbreak was “confused” and that it had been “a balancing act” between over-scaring people and getting them to take the situation “seriously enough.” Giving evidence for several hours on Thursday, Whitty said he still worries about whether the government got the “level of concern” about the threat to the public right in March 2020, when the first, unprecedented lockdown was announced. He told the inquiry, chaired by Baroness Heather Hallett, that if anything, the government’s scientific advisers “overdid it” at the beginning....