Hancock’s Half Hearted Quarantine

While some in our free and fearless press are taking the announcement from health secretary Matt Hancock that there might some day be 100,000 tests each day for the presence of the Coronavirus, or perhaps the Coronavirus antibody, or even a combination of the two, others are wondering how someone who is supposed to have been experiencing symptoms of the virus is suddenly up and about and in rude health.

The World Health Organisation is quite explicit on this matter: “People infected with Covid-19 can still infect others after they stop feeling sick, so these measures should continue for at least 2 weeks after symptoms disappear … Visitors should not be allowed until the end of this period”. Yet there was Hancock being allowed on BBC Question Time yesterday evening. So the questions were bound to be asked.

Colin Nickless was unimpressed with both Hancock and alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson: “Too sick to attend a press conference but well enough to stand in a doorway clapping away whilst supposedly in lockdown. Both him and Hancock disregarding WHO recommendations like they have throughout this crisis”.

Christian DeFeo, who you can tell as he’s a doctor, added “My aunt and uncle are pharmaceutical scientists. I spoke to them yesterday: basically they don’t think that 7 days is sufficient self-isolation to prevent being contagious. Hancock being out there is a really bad idea”. Jon Worth asked “How many days was Hancock in confinement after his positive coronavirus test?” The Observer’s Carole Cadwalladr was on the same page.

“Here’s a question: why is Matt Hancock out of isolation after 6 days? Why is UK advice (7 days) different from WHO’s (14 days)?” Who would care to proffer a lame excuse? Tim Shipman of the Murdoch Sunday Times would. “He went into isolation before it was publicised that he was. He has been in isolation longer than Boris”. But the Tweeter known as My Sweet Landlord was unconvinced. “Matt Hancock stated in his video on Thurs 27th March that he had been working from home for a couple of days. He didn't state that he had been self-isolating due to symptoms”. And WHO 14 day recommendation, remember.

Or, as James Felton put it, “‘At each step we have followed the scientific advice’ says Matt Hancock, no longer self-isolating 6 days through his 7 day isolation, which itself would be half way through the World Health Organisation recommended 14”. To which a cynical Mark Bayliss added "That's the scientific advice from those Nobel Laureates: Dominic ‘herd immunity’ Cummings and Nadine ‘just a bit of a cough’ Dorries”.

Seriously, though, this is bad not just for Hancock, who, it seems, should not have been back at work and certainly not touring the TV studios, but bad for all those who are going to have come into contact with him, and terrible as an example to put before an increasingly frightened and restless public. Someone in Government doesn’t get it.

We are supposed to be taking the Coronavirus pandemic seriously. That includes Tories.

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