After a 10-minute break, the Inquiry has resumed with a focus on the events of January and February 2020.

Asked if Matt Hancock made “repeated” attempts to “raise the alarm” with him about Covid-19, Boris Johnson said he certainly recalled a conversation on January 7, 2020 but added: “I don’t, to be frank, remember all those conversations, but it’s true that we will have spoken on many occasions because we generally spoke quite a lot.

“I think that in that period, January really to the end of February, towards the end of February, Covid was pretty much like a cloud on the horizon no bigger than a man’s hand, and you didn’t know if it was going to turn into a typhoon or not… It became clear much later.”

Mr Johnson said there were cabinet discussions about the pandemic in January and February, and a “crescendo of activity about it… In government, it wasn’t yet being escalated to me as something of really truly national concern.”

Hugo Keith KC noted five Cobra meetings, chaired by Matt Hancock, took place in the space of a month. “A Cobra is a regular occurrence in government when there’s something a particular department is leading on,” Mr Johnson insisted.

“I think I was aware of handling it, I can’t say I was aware that he was handling in that way [Cobra meetings] on those particular dates. My instructions to him were to keep me posted and I would do whatever I could… Clearly, by the end of February, I’m getting anxious about what we’re doing.”