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Following the announcement that the health minister Nadine Dorries has the virus, officially named Covid-19, there has been fevered debate about whether the prime minister and perhaps the

rest of the cabinet should be tested. The official line coming from Downing Street is this: “We follow the advice of Public Health England and the CMO (Chief Medical Officer). The prime

minister has no symptoms so there is no need for a test.”

It adds that: “The prime minister was not in close contact with Nadine Dorries. The advice is that you would have to be within two metres of someone to pass it on.” Dorries had attended a

function at Downing Street on the evening before she fell ill, while Boris Johnson had also been there — although indeed it seems clear they did not come into close contact.

Now, this is complicated. The first point to make clear is that it is vital — life-and-death vital — right now that the government, and the rest of us, receive and heed the best scientific

advice available. And there is no one better qualified to give it than the CMO, Professor Chris Whitty, himself an epidemiologist who played a key role in advising the British government’s

involvement in the fight against the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone. Another epidemiologist recently said to me that Whitty and the government’s Chief Scientific Officer Patrick Vallance, a

medical doctor with great experience in the pharmaceutical industry, are the “adults in the room” during this crisis.

Second, it’s important to retain a sense of proportion even — perhaps especially — when faced with a major global emergency of this sort. Naturally, the “two metre” rule is no more than a

rough guideline, and it doesn’t speak to the possibility of someone picking up the virus from droplets coughed or sneezed and then settled on a surface, where it remains active for a long

time. On the other hand, it’s important to recognise that there are limits to the contagion, and not to inculcate the idea that you will catch the disease from glimpsing someone across a

crowded room. (Rumours that people have been wearing gloves and facemasks to Skype colleagues in Italy are all too believable.)

But it is the first part of the Downing Street response that is the most troubling: that, since Johnson has no symptoms, “there is no need for a test”.This is simply untrue. One of the most

problematic aspects of Covid-19 is that it seems very likely that you can have it, and be infectious, before you feel any symptoms. This period of pre-symptomatic infectiousness is not known

exactly, but some early studies suggest it could be one to two days.

One of the most important factors in preventing the spread of the virus is early identification of those infected, so that they can be isolated as soon as possible to prevent them from

infecting others. In China, widespread testing along with careful tracking of contacts with known cases meant that this period could be reduced to two days (people with the virus can remain

infectious for about a week). So quickly finding and testing people who have been in contact with an individual with the virus, whether those people have the symptoms themselves, is key. The

Downing Street comment spreads misleading information about this.

The other consideration, of course, is that in taking a test simply to be on the safe side, Johnson would be offering a good example to anyone nervous about being tested themselves. He would

be showing that there’s no stigma or danger attached to it, and that indeed we are all in this together. Downing Street could simply say that, even though normally close contact is needed

for the infection to be passed on, in this case the extra need for caution and public reassurance, as well as the dangers of transmission via surfaces, has made it advisable to play it safe.

In any event, government sources need to be much more careful about what they say. Clear and accurate public information will be essential if the worst scenarios are to be avoided. Johnson

has already caused anger and dismay when he said on ITV’s breakfast show “This Morning” last Thursday, in regard to the government’s plans, that “one of the theories is, that perhaps you

could take it on the chin, take it all in one go and allow the disease, as it were, to move through the population, without taking as many draconian measures”. Some people interpreted the

remark as advocacy of that (alarmingly dangerous) strategy.

It was not. Johnson went on to say that “I think it would be better if we take all the measures that we can now to stop the peak of the disease being as difficult for the NHS as it might

be.” What is troubling, however, is where this “theory” came from in the first place. It is not one that I have heard any health professionals adduce, and for very good reason: thousands

would probably die, and the health service would be utterly overwhelmed. It’s possible that Johnson meant simply to imply that this is the kind of thing some people are apt to say.

If so, that is no way to make the point. Calling it a “theory” sounds like it is official advice, albeit advice not followed. The Johnsonian “take it on the chin” might sound terribly

British and stoical, but is woefully inappropriate when what it really means is a catastrophic fatality rate. But perhaps most importantly, it sends out a message of fatalism to an all too

receptive audience.

There is already a widespread view that this is all a fuss about nothing, because after all lots of people die each flu season. A remark like this plays into such views. If you doubt that,

consider what a healthcare professional told my wife this morning while administering hand gel at the door of the A&E department (the visit was for a totally unrelated matter). “We’re all

going to get it anyway. Boris Johnson said so.” Where do you think that idea came from?

There is no margin for error in public communication about Covid-19, and the sloppiness that has crept into political comment in the past few years could now be lethal.

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