With Boris using his first day back after his cut-short holiday to renew the push for kids to return to the classroom in September, deputy CMO Jenny Harries has used a rare media round to tell parents their children are more likely to be involved in a traffic collision or catch the seasonal flu than they are to contract Covid. Car crash TV in the most literal sense…

Boris is also making the point that the risks to children from staying away from school any longer – in both physical and mental health terms – vastly outweigh the risks of Coronavirus: “Nothing will have a greater effect on the life chances of our children than returning to school.” Prepare for a day of Gavin Williamson photo ops…

Former Tory Leadership and London Mayoral candidate Rory Stewart has re-appeared in the national conversation today, reminding everyone of his lone calls for the Government to do more to suppress the virus weeks before the lockdown came about. In the wake of Professor Ferguson saying that locking down a week earlier could have halved Britain’s death toll, Stewart’s armchair epidemiology is not looking bad after all…

Unlike many partisan snipers, Stewart told the Today Programme this morning that “the Government was absolutely doing I think what the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Officer were telling them to do”. SAGE scientists unanimously opposed Covid suppression measures as late as mid-march, concluding:

“SAGE was unanimous that measures seeking to completely suppress spread of Covid19 will cause a second peak. SAGE advises that it is a near certainty that countries such as China, where heavy suppression is underway, will experience a second peak once measures are relaxed.”

Last night Stewart tweeted a BBC interview with Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Jenny Harries from 10 March, fervently disagreeing with Stewart’s calls for a shutdown , saying the Government’s response is “founded entirely on scientific advice”. We’ve reached the bizarre point where a consensus is building that the Government relied too much on experts from organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best…

Not sure that gives either side the emphatic clarification either way they were hoping for…

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Jenny Harries had stark words for the country at today’s press conference:

“To make it clear to the public, if we are successful we will have squashed the top of that curve which will be brilliant, but we must not then suddenly revert to our normal way of living, that would be quite dangerous. If we stop then all of our efforts will be wasted.”

“Over time, probably over the next six months, we will have a three week review, we will see where we are going. We need to keep that lid on, and then gradually we will be able to hopefully adjust some of the social distancing measures, and gradually get us all back to normal.”

“Three to six months ideally, and lots of uncertainty in that, to see at which point we can actually get back to normal. And it is plausible that it could go further than that.“

We’re in this for the long haul…