Going to work with a cough could stop being socially acceptable, government scientific advisor says

The Government’s Deputy Chief Scientific Adviser suggests going to work with a cough will become socially unacceptable.

Professor Dame Angela McLean, Professor of Mathematical Biology, University of Oxford, and Chief Scientific Adviser at the Ministry of Defence, said a cough may end up being seen the same as an upset stomach, meaning people will stay away from offices and other work places when they have one.

When speaking to the Commons science and technology committee regarding the easing of lockdown, McLean said: “It’s quite unlikely that we would return completely to the way that we behaved let’s say in February 2020 because there are things that we used to do that I suspect we won’t do anymore.

“I suspect we just won’t go to work if you have a respiratory illness.”

When asked whether she thought it would be mandated or people would change their behaviour voluntarily, she added: “It would be most powerful if it simply became socially unacceptable to go to work with a cough.

“There are certain illness at the moment that you would not go to work with, if you had a tummy upset or something like that, so that would be very powerful…certainly we will want people not to be going out if they know they have Covid.”

She also explained that if vaccines only have a limited impact on transmission of coronavirus by people who still catch it despite having taken the vaccine, then the roll-out on its own might not be enough for a return to life before Covid. 

Adding: “If that is the case, then vaccination alone won’t be enough to allow a complete return to how we used to behave”.