Mutant superbug the government can’t control – Boris Johnson or coronavirus?

The advice for how to prevent the spread of coronavirus is to ignore what the prime minister says

A deadly pandemic is sweeping the earth and, hoping to restore a sense of calm, prime minister Boris Johnson calls an emergency press conference. A few years ago, that is how I might have begun some kind of dystopian hellscape flight of comedic fancy – so in 2020, it must be the truth.

Hoping to talk down the problem, I might have continued, Johnson lied about having shaken hands with coronavirus patients on a recent visit to a hospital, in blatant contravention of medical guidelines. Of course, that is exactly what happened. “Standing at the prime minister’s right-hand side, the nation’s chief scientific adviser tried but failed to contain a wince,” is the kind of little detail I might have fabricated. That happened as well.

I might well have added something about Jacob Rees-Mogg wandering into an emergency meeting and breathlessly telling the nation to “wash your hands while singing the national anthem”. I’d probably keep that bit back for near the end. You know, the point about three-quarters of the way down, where it becomes so far-fetched that it’s clearly all a joke. Of course, that’s happened too.

At this point, it appears to behove me to clarify that Boris Johnson didn’t actually shake hands with anyone with coronavirus. Government sources have been impressing that on people, despite the fact that the actual prime minister said on live television: “I was at a hospital the other night, where I think there were actually a few coronavirus patients and I shook hands with everybody.” The government is now telling journalists how irresponsible it would be of them to repeat, verbatim, the words the prime minister said on live television.

It has now become a matter not merely of national security, but of public health that the prime minister not be taken seriously. What also happened is that he, father of n, soon to be n+1, urged the public to show “self-restraint” with its use of the NHS.

The prime minister did not make clear where this drive for personal prurience fitted in with his brand new coronavirus four-stage plan: contain, delay, research, mitigate. No sooner was the prime minister done than various extremely senior doctors appeared on news channels to explain that there are more efficient ways of containing the virus than to pitch up at your local hospital and seek out the coronavirus patients that may or may not be there, and then shake hands with them.

To the prime minister’s left stood chief medical officer Chris Whitty who, sounding ever more like the swimming pool security guard from the cult The Day Today sketch, took no fewer than three opportunities to point out that the vast majority of people infected with coronavirus will not die. At one point, we were told that 99 per cent of people “will not die”. In 1975... you get the idea.

Still, what difference does it make? Boris Johnson has always been best understood as some kind of mutant superbug that normal democratic processes are unable to control. It will take us years to develop the required resistance to a liar that much more brazen than any we have encountered before. All attempts at containment have failed. We tried delay but it just made it worse. The research was all done years ago but no one’s interested in it, and it’s far too late for mitigation now. We’re stuck with the guy now for at least five years. 99 per cent of you will not die. I’d hold on to that, if I were you – it’s as optimistic as things are likely to get.