Matt Hancock slammed for 'smirking' at horror vaccine scene from Contagion on GMB
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UP NEXT
Health Secretary Matt Hancock was accused of "smirking" as Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid played a horrifying scene from pandemic film Contagion where a violent riot ensues as people find out there is limited doses of a vaccine available as a killer disease sweeps the world.
When the hosts cut back to the MP, he was beaming as he said the film had provided some inspiration for his policy-making, and many viewers accused him of not taking the discussion seriously.
One viewer tweeted: " @ GMB @ piersmorgan What is Hancock laughing about? There's nothing funny about this. He was grinning as well, which was weird and disturbing. # gmb ".
"He's got that stupid smirk again," complained another.
A third added: "Matt Hancock smiling fills me with fear tbh # gmb ", while a fourth wrote: "Morgan laughing along with the smiling assassin Hancock is sickening. # gmb ".
Mr Hancock said: "I think the safest thing to say it wasn't my only source of advice, but I did watch the film and the film is actually based on the advice of very serious epidemiologists.
© ITVMatt Hancock
"But the insight that was so necessary at the start was that the moment of big moment pressure on vaccines internationally would not be before they were approved.
"One of the things I did early was insist the UK production protects people in the UK in the first instance and as the UK Health Secretary, that is my duty.
"And also at the same time we are making it available at cost to the rest of the world, I think not enough people give AstraZeneca enough credit for that."
© ITVMatt Hancock
Mr Hancock doubled down on his claim that we will be able to enjoy a "great British summer" with no lockdown due to the success of the vaccine rollout.
Asked what lessons had been learnt by the government's lack of preparation for a pandemic, the MP said: "There were things we didn't have as a nation.
"We didn't have a large-scale testing regime for instance and we know some of our close neighbours like Germany did have that in place and it meant they could get it going much faster.
"So, I don't think there is any point in being anything other than open and discussing this so we are better prepared next time, and boy will we be.
"You mentioned vaccines, I'm sure we can go through the great results we've seen from Oxford overnight.
"But one of the things in vaccines is that there wasn't a domestic, on-shore manufacturing process, we were great at the science, and have been for decades, but there wasn't the on-shore manufacturing."
* Good Morning Britain airs weekdays on ITV at 6am