Care providers have said the Covid Inquiry has laid bare the “brutal and callous disregard for older people and vulnerable adults” during the pandemic.

The backlash came after the Inquiry was shown notes made by the government’s chief scientist Sir Patrick Vallance in which he said that former Prime Minister Boris Johnson was “obsessed with older people accepting their fate and letting the young get on with life and the economy going”.

In his evidence to the Inquiry, former adviser Dominic Cummings said there had been no plan for shielding those most at risk from the virus.

In earlier evidence, Anthony Costello, Professor of global health and inclusion health research, said the government had failed to follow WHO advice on minimising care home Covid outbreaks.

The health expert said “upwards of 150k deaths” could have been prevented if the UK had followed the policies put in place by nations such as Japan and South Korea.

There were 43,256 deaths involving Covid-19 in care homes in England between March 2020 and January 2022.

The Independent Care Group (ICG) described the latest evidence given to the Inquiry as “horrific”.

ICG chair Mike Padgham said: “I have been shocked to hear a horrific disregard for the lives and the health of the most vulnerable section of our society.

“If true, it cannot then be a surprise that there was such a horrific and tragic loss of life in care settings during the pandemic.

“The government wasn’t prepared and, by the sound of it, might not have cared about the people we care for anyway.

“The evidence we are hearing also makes a nonsense of claims that a ‘protective ring’ was being thrown around care homes. As we knew at the time and have argued since no such thing was happening – quite the reverse. There was no testing going on and we were struggling for PPE.”

Helen Wildbore, director of Care Rights UK, told Caring Times: “These comments would be appalling from anyone, but to hear them coming from the very top is shameful. These were mothers, fathers, wives, husbands. They should never have been treated as expendable.”

Brenda Doherty, spokesperson for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, responding to Johnson’s alleged comments, said: “He clearly didn’t see people like my mum as human beings, and thousands others died unnecessarily after the same mistakes were repeated because of Johnson’s callous and brutal attitude. I’d do anything to spend another day with my mum, and now we know that we might have had years and years together if only the country had a more humane Prime Minister when the pandemic struck.”