The question of why the government diverged from the suggestions of its scientific advisers on key pandemic policies has long been a source of debate. Why did Boris Johnson proudly boast of shaking hands “with everybody” at a hospital with known coronavirus patients on the same day in early March 2020 when the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) warned against doing so? Why did the government fail to take action in the autumn of 2020, when cases were rising and Sage recommended a circuit-breaker lockdown? Why were primary schoolchildren sent back to mix in the classroom for just a single day in January 2021? Could it be that ministers simply didn’t understand the science? The recent leak of 100,000 WhatsApp messages has shed some light on the issue.
One conversation emerging from the leak, between Johnson, his chief political adviser, Dominic Cummings, and his scientific advisers, presents a particularly egregious example of scientific illiteracy.
