“You have to empower people by telling them what is going on, but I get the feeling that some of the UK scientists didn’t want to use the word ‘mild’, they only want to use the word ‘severe’.”

Her suspicion appears to be borne out by the language used by the SPI-M-O modelling committee, which on December 7 said: “Currently, there is no strong evidence that omicron infections are either more or less severe than delta infections.”

Sage has also avoided the use of the word “mild”, noting on December 16 that “it is still too early to reliably assess the severity of disease caused by omicron compared to previous variants. Although a preliminary analysis from South Africa suggests that this wave may be less severe than previous waves, a comparison of […]cases within this wave suggests less difference between variants.

“Some severity estimates should start to become available in about a week […] even if there were to be a modest reduction in severity compared to delta, very high numbers of infections would still lead to significant pressure on hospitals.”

Laura Dodsworth, author of the book A State of Fear: How the UK Government Weaponised Fear During the Covid-19 Pandemic, says the “linguistic manipulation” was entirely deliberate.

“The omission of the word ‘mild’ is not an accident,” she says. “The problem for the Government is that once you have started using fear as a tactic, there is nowhere left to go, so you have to keep on using it, and you have to keep on quoting worst case scenarios.

“But each time you do it, the tactics become less successful because people become wise to it. Once you have seen the smoke and mirrors, you can’t unsee it.”

Modelling published by SPI-M-O on December 15 suggested a “high-level scenario” of infections, peaking at between 600,000 and 2 million per day with the current Plan B restrictions between late December and January, with up to 6,000 deaths per day, peaking between mid-January and mid-March.

In fact, infections are currently averaging around 180,000 per day and may have already peaked in some parts of the country, with deaths averaging just over 150 per day.

Even when fresh data backed up what the South African scientists had been saying, Sage was dismissive, noting in its December 20 minutes: “The number of infections and hospitalisation in Gauteng [a province in South Africa] appears to be declining. The reasons for this are not clear, and it cannot be assumed that this will be sustained.”

Mark Harper MP, chairman of the anti-lockdown Covid Recovery Group, said ministers had once again been guilty of blithely following expert advice rather than interrogating advisers and looking at the picture in the round.

“The whole history of the pandemic shows that ministers need to ask better questions,” he says, “challenge the advice and really get their heads around what they are being told so they can weigh it up against all the other factors they need to consider in the best interests of the country.”

The most gloomy predictions for the omicron wave now seem certain to have been wide of the mark. The problem for the Government is that if a more dangerous, vaccine-resistant variant arises, it could prove difficult to persuade an increasingly cynical public to do as they’re told.