Vallance’s dire Covid warning was a mistake

The idea on the whole was sound. The execution less so. Boris Johnson was nowhere to be seen at yesterday’s press conference. Instead, the honest brokers in this crisis, the medical scientists, were front and centre, in what may be a Downing Street briefing remembered for all the wrong reasons. When chief medical officer, professor Chris Whitty, and chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, had finished their statements, there were plenty more questions than answers – not least as a result of their use of a graph showing how quickly the coronavirus crisis could get out of hand if we fail to act.

As a medic, I’m inclined to be supportive of Whitty and Vallance. I know how difficult the job can be and how precarious the situation is. Yet some of the data presented was so flawed and the graphical depictions so unnecessarily jaundiced that all I was left with was a mixed feeling of emptiness and anger.