According to the Newsnight report, care homes were initially advised that they didn’t need to take any extra special precautions against coronavirus.

On 25 February, government-issued advice said there was no need to do anything different in care homes on the grounds that there was no evidence of transmission of the virus in the UK. But on 13 March, that advice was dropped.

Six days later, the government instructed NHS hospitals to create space for Covid-19 patients by clearing 15,000 beds. This included sending an unspecified number of patients to care homes, Reuters reports.

On 2 April, Public Health England said negative tests were not required for patients returning to care homes. Two weeks later, the government said patients entering care homes would be tested for the virus.

The number of care home deaths only started to be included in official daily death tolls at the end of April. Now, around a quarter of known coronavirus deaths in the UK have happened in care homes.

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