It’s beginning to look a lot like the ‘new normal’. Certainly in Portcullis House, anyway, where no fewer than three public health experts were dialling in virtually to update the health select committee on the latest situation with the omicron variant.
Beaming into the Grimond Room were Professor Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, Dr Thomas Waite, interim deputy, and Dr Susan Hopkins of the UK Health Security Agency. Together, they formed a quadruple split screen, reminiscent of a Mario Kart multiplayer, while MPs – carefully distanced around the horseshoe-shaped table – watched on four different television sets. It was one of those bizarre sights that would have been impossible to explain to a time-traveller visiting from a pre-2019 age.
Between his sorrowful, heavy-lidded eyes and deadpan manner, the chief medical officer has always possessed a charmingly extraterrestrial quality. But his office backdrop did little to reassure viewers that he was not in fact a sophisticated alien infiltrator, leading a double life as a high-ranking health official.
A futuristic tower block, worthy of Blade Runner, materialised spookily through the open window behind him. Adorning his walls was a single canvas print of a stock photo that resembled the surface of the moon – or perhaps the chief medical officer’s home planet. Surveying the scene, it was hard to resist the temptation to give Mulder and Scully a ring.
Jeremy Hunt, chairman of the committee wanted to know about his frenetic round of upcoming Christmas parties – sorry, the national interest.
“If you were planning in the next week to go to – I don’t know – four or five social functions,” he asked, “your advice would be, try not to go to… the two or three that matter least to you?” One felt for whichever of Jeremy Hunt’s pals was soon to receive a “sorry, mate – about those drinks” text.
“I’m still trying to avoid making people’s choices for them,” the chief medical officer enunciated primly.
In the committee room, things remained overwhelmingly collegiate – they good-naturedly discussed everything from care homes to booster jabs, occasionally stopping to applaud each other’s expertise.
“I understand the chair knows this well,” Prof Whitty would say.
“Thanks Dr Evans, you’ve touched on one of the really key things there,” said Thomas Waite to the MP for Hinckley and Bosworth, a chisel-jawed former GP.
At one point, Dean Russell triggered the chief medical officer’s wrath by asking about the risk of prioritising Covid over other issues.
“I think this is sometimes said…by people who have no understanding of health at all,” snapped Prof Whitty. You imagined his antennae quivering in frustration. But even this dusty answer felt uncanny somehow, like watching ET trying to be sassy.
In the Commons Chamber, however, it proved a Tale of Two Whitties, as Tory rebels lined up to bash not just the Government, but the experts themselves.
“Advisers,” stressed Greg Smith, the Buckingham MP, meaningfully, “pressed the panic button way beyond what this house voted for a couple of days ago.”
“At a stroke the CMO changed government policy and put this country, certainly hospitality, into effective lockdown!” fumed Steve Brine, a former health minister.
Back in the wonkish confines of the Grimond Room, however, the chairman was asking what – if anything – might trigger a reappraisal of the situation.
But the chief medical officer and his colleagues would not be drawn into specifics – beyond that perennial call for more data. “I’m very confident there will be an exit strategy,” conceded Prof Whitty. A nation breathed a sigh of relief.
