A government medical chief has apologised for the number of deaths in UK care homes due to coronavirus. Speaking at the daily Downing Street briefing on Saturday, Deputy chief medical officer Prof Van-Tam said care homes were a “perfect storm” for Covid-19, adding “I’m extremely sorry for the many deaths that have occurred.” Asked why it has been so difficult to protect the vulnerable in care homes and what more might need to be done, he said they are difficult “from a basic infection control and epidemiology point of view”. “You almost have the perfect storm of a really nasty virus that’s infectious, a very elderly population – and we know age increases risk – a population with many underlying illnesses, risk conditions that again