COVID-19 PRESS CONFERENCE FOR ENGLAND, MONDAY 18 MAY

This “presser” was led by Dominic Raab MP, Foreign Secretary (Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs) who as First Secretary of State deputised for PM Johnson when he was ill with COVID-19.  Raab was supported by Jonathan Van-Tam, Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England, who is a respiratory disease specialist.

The entire presser can be found on YouTube.  There is also a transcript.

The graphics can be found here.  This web page also lists links to the graphics shown at other pressers.

My comments should be read in the context of what I might expect in these pressers.

 
GENERAL COMMENTS

There was no news as such, though questioners had some success in clarifying certain aspects of the government’s position.

Van Tam answered questions as directly as he could.  Though when put on the spot, he ‘invented’ 30th February. Just to show he was human.  As he did when talking about his elderly mother.

Politicians are trained to answer a question by telling everything they want to be heard, and then avoiding the actual question.  Raab is a master at it.

I would also repeat my general comments from the presser the day before, found here. 

 
SPECIFIC COMMENTS

Actually, of more interest were the features broadcast by the BBC just before and after the presser:
  1. A feature about India’s exceptionally low death toll, despite a packed population highlighted that wearing masks was key.  Just like China and South Korea, alongside other countries in Asia.  There are other factors, but why didn’t the UK government encourage the public to wear a face covering whenever they left the house, right from January?  People can make a Simple Source Control mask that does the job at home.  Though reserve stocks of medical masks would have helped.
  2. A feature about the tracing app trial on the Isle of Wight disclosed someone who wouldn’t take their phone to Tesco’s, in case it registered a contact with someone infected.  Apart from the very real prospect of false contacts, where transmission hasn’t occurred, the key point was that people don’t want to self-isolate ‘just in case’. But only if they are really ill.

That leads on to two related questions at the presser:
  1. One question was that testing can take up to 5 days to confirm whether or not someone has the virus.  That’s yet another problem with the test/trace/isolate process.  Not something upon which we should be relying yet, as I explain separately
  2. Van Tam was questioned on why it has taken so long to add loss of taste and smell (“Anosmia”) to the official list of symptoms.  There are many other reasons why that happens.  Unlike a high temperature or coughing, anosmia is not obvious to someone else. On balance, I think it should have been added no later than March when anosmia was first suspected.

OVERALL ASSESSMENT

As with yesterday’s presser, overall on a scale of -2 dreadful to +2 great, this was at best a +0.5.  Or a B+ in old money.

Again that's simply not good enough.

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