Perhaps inspired by his tenuous description of the country as being on a “glide path” towards a vaccine with a risk of “side winds”, Van-Tam marked his first coronavirus briefing from self-isolation “due to a household contact” with a nod to the idiom of pilots. In responses instantly destined for a million supercuts, the deputy chief medical officer for England said “over” over and over, but – crucially – avoided the rookie error of adding “and out”. Van-Tam offered no warning or explanation of his eccentric phrasing, but it was presumably intended to provide a signal to the health and social care secretary, Matt Hancock, and the NHS England medical director, Prof Stephen Powis, that they could safely talk without interrupting him. Van-Tam’s appearance was also marked by his backdrop of Boston United football programmes. His use of the glide path image, meanwhile, is not his first brush with strained analogies.

Source: The Guardian November 20, 2020 18:45 UTC