Annemarie Plas said she will no longer raise awareness of the campaign. Credit: PA
The founder of Clap for Carers has announced that she is distancing herself from the relaunched campaign after receiving abuse and threats on social media.
Annemarie Plas, who came up with the weekly ritual that ran for 10 weeks during the first lockdown, had tweeted that the tradition would return on Thursday evening, this time named Clap for Heroes .
But in a statement released on Thursday afternoon, she said: I feel I have no choice but to distance myself from this evening s national applause at 8pm.
She added: Clap for Carers has never been a political platform, it was originally established to allow those who wanted to publicly show their support for the NHS and key workers to do so.
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Video report by ITV News Correspondent Faye Barker
Images of the 90-year-old wearing the Christmas penguin top as she received the Pfizer/BioNTech jab at the University Hospital Coventry on Tuesday were beamed around the world - and in response global demand for Ms Keenan s T-shirt generated almost as much excitement as the momentous scientific breakthrough itself.
Ms Keenan s festive T-shirt - which she was given to wear so she would not be photographed in her pyjamas - is sold in support of the hospital s own charity.
Since the T-shirt s time in front of the cameras, the charity says it have seen sales soar by 300%, with orders flooding in from around the globe.