Day 5 of the Telegraph’s Lockdown Files and the most startling stories yet. Here’s what’s new:

1. Matt Hancock asked when he could ‘deploy the variant’

When the more contagious Alpha (then ‘Kent’) variant started spreading in December 2020, many were scared. Good, thought Hancock. The former health secretary told his adviser that ‘we [can] frighten the pants of [sic] everyone with the new strain’ on 13 December, and wondered when ‘do we deploy the new variant’.