'Low isolation support cost lives in pandemic'

IF the UK had spent more money to support people to self-isolate during the Covid-19 pandemic then fewer people would have died, the probe into the crisis has heard.

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But former prime minister Rishi Sunak would not budge on proposals to pay people more to isolate, the UK Covid-19 Inquiry was told.

Baroness Dido Harding, the former head of NHS Test and Trace, said that Mr Sunak, who was the chancellor at the time, rejected proposals “at every opportunity”.

“There was an intransigence to that that I think was very sad,” Lady Harding said.

In September 2020, the Government announced that people would be required to self-isolate by law.

And a £500 package of support was put in place for people on low incomes who could not work from home and would lose pay as a result.