Leaked recordings of a Home Office conference call on Tuesday reveal that the Government has all but given up in its fight against the Coronavirus and is intent on simply finding “a method of managing it within the population”.

Herd immunity again. https://bylinetimes.com/2020/04/09/leaked-home-office-call-reveals-uk-government-wants-economy-to-continue-running-as-we-will-all-get-covid-19-anyway/

In justifying a continuation of herd immunity Home Office Deputy Science Advisor Rupert Shute ignores WHO advice and empirical evidence from South Korea, Singapore and other countries, while offering economic advice. This is the pleasing of political masters, not science.

If mass-testing & data-driven tracing cannot largely suppress coronavirus, or if a vaccine is several years away, then Shute may be right that most people will eventually be infected. But there is no scientific evidence for either assumption. Shute is not giving scientific advice

It seems that at highest ranks of the government scientific advisers there are ex-scientists who have taken on the role of providing scientific sounding justifications for their political masters' favoured policies.