Matt Hancock tests positive for Covid for second time

Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock has confirmed this evening that he has tested positive for Covid-19 – seven months after he resigned from office after being caught kissing his married aide in his Westminster office.

The disgraced politician took to Twitter this evening to share the news that he had tested positive for the virus and that he was now isolating at home.

Hancock previously tested positive for Covid-19 during the early stages of the pandemic, back in March 2020. 

And seven months ago, the infamous kiss between Hancock and his aide Gina Coladangelo broke social distancing guidelines, that he himself pushed for as Health Secretary, forcing him to step down.

The disgraced politician took to Twitter this evening to share the news that he had tested positive for the virus and that he was now isolating at home

Tweeting this evening, Mr Hancock said: ‘Yesterday afternoon I tested positive for Coronavirus. 

‘I’ve been isolating at home since then. Thankfully I feel fine. Much better than last time and that’s thanks to the vaccine.’

At the end of his tweet, Mr Hancock added that those people in Britain who have yet to receive a vaccine against Covid-19 should go and get one. 

‘Get your booster now if you haven’t already,’ he said.

Hancock previously spoke about the impact Covid-19 had on him after he contracted the virus the first time.

Seven months ago, the infamous kiss (pictured) between Hancock and his aide Gina Coladangelo broke social distancing guidelines, that he himself pushed for as Health Secretary, forcing him to step down

Speaking to Sky News in April 2020, he said: ‘It is rough, especially when you are on the downhill part of it – it’s very worrying because we’ve all seen how serious it can get.

‘I had a couple of days when it was really very unpleasant and I’ve lost about half a stone.’

Hancock’s positive Covid test comes seven months after he resigned as Health Secretary after he was caught on CCTV passionately kissing his married aide Gina Coladangelo against the door of his Whitehall office in June 2021.

He lost his job when it emerged they were seeing each other despite her being his aide and them breaking social distancing rules that he had himself created. 

Hancock, who served as Health Secretary between 2018 and 2021, initially tried to ride out the political storm over his breach of Covid restrictions, but eventually resigned

Mr Hancock tried to ride out the political storm over his flagrant breaches of Covid-19 regulations and his marital infidelity but was eventually forced to resign. 

When asked on the ITV’s Peston last month whether he was surprised Boris Johnson did not sack him, Mr Hancock said: ‘I’m not going to go into the conversations that I had with the Prime Minister.

‘I made the decision [to resign], it was clearly right decision. And I just say, sorry again for the failure of… I let a lot of people down and I’m sorry to the people who I hurt.’  

The bombshell expose of Mr Hancock’s affair with his aide, who was married to Oliver Bonas founder Oliver Tress, forced him to resign as health secretary. 

The news comes as the daily Covid cases fell by nearly 45 per cent in a week today in the biggest drop since Omicron took off — as an expert claimed the UK would be the first country in the northern hemisphere to tame the pandemic. 

There were 120,821 new positive tests logged across the country over the past 24 hours, according to Government dashboard data, down from the pandemic high of 218,000 last Tuesday. It marks the sixth day in a row infections have fallen week-on-week and strongly suggests the fourth wave is subsiding in little over a month.  

There is now growing optimism the UK’s outbreak will follow a similar trajectory to South Africa’s, where the virus has almost completely fizzled out after becoming the Omicron epicentre in November. 

Another 379 Covid deaths were also registered across the UK today, up more than seven times on the low figure of 48 last week. Deaths are always artificially higher on Tuesdays due to reporting lags at the weekend but last week’s toll was also affected by the Bank Holiday.

 At the end of his tweet this evening, Mr Hancock (file image) encouraged others to go and get their Covid vaccination

The death rate has remained relatively flat despite Omicron pushing infection rates to record highs, and there are around five times fewer fatalities now than during the second wave last January.

There are growing calls for No10 to learn to live with Covid rather than focus on halting the spread of the virus now there is such a big disconnect between infections and deaths. Final restrictions could start to be lifted this month, it was claimed today.

The promising statistics came as Professor David Heymann, an epidemiologist from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), suggested the UK was on the brink of beating the pandemic.

He told an online briefing: ‘In general, now, the countries we know best in the northern hemisphere have varying stages of the pandemic. And probably, in the UK, it’s the closest to any country of being out of the pandemic if it isn’t already out of the pandemic and having the disease as endemic as the other four coronaviruses.’   

Last Tuesday included several days of Covid cases in Northern Ireland, which will have made the weekly drop in infections artificially steeper today. But infections were still massively down in England and London. 

Speaking at the briefing, run by the Chatham House think-tank, Professor Heymann said population immunity was already high in the UK through a combination of its highly-successful vaccine programme and high infection rates.

He added: ‘That means immunity against serious illness and death after infection if one is vaccinated, or after re-infection if one has had illness before, and that population immunity seems to be keeping the virus and its variants at bay, not causing serious illness or death in countries where population immunity is high. 

‘I looked at the ONS (Office for National Statistics) most recent report on population immunity and they estimated about 95 per cent of the population in England and a little less than in other parts of the United Kingdom do have antibody to infection either from vaccination or from natural infection.

‘And that antibody, as I said, is keeping the virus at bay. And it’s now functioning more like an endemic coronavirus than one that is a pandemic.’