Hancock: Asymptomatic coronavirus transmission 'was not known'

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 was not known when thousands of patients were released from hospitals into care homes without being tested.

Blanket testing of all discharges was introduced on 16 April, but figures released by NHS England show 25,000 were discharged from hospital into care homes in the month leading up to that date.

When questioned about this by the BBC's Andrew Marr, Mr Hancock said: "At that point it was not known about the asymptomatic transmission of this disease, because no other coronavirus transmits asymptomatically, is my understanding.

"This point about asymptomatic transmission was something that the whole world was learning about in that period but we did not know about."