Boris Weighs Up "Nuclear" Options There's a story by Tim Shipman in the Sunday Times today that I'm struggling to understand. He reports that last Wednesday at 4pm the Prime Minister convened a war-gaming exercise in which they considered various responses to different "second wave" scenarios. For an hour they mapped out options for the next few months. Simon Case, head of the COVID-19 taskforce, led a discussion of three fictional but realistic scenarios that reflected Whitehall’s fears about what could happen next. “There were three whiteboards in different corners of the room,” one of those present said.In their tabletop war game, Johnson and Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, first discussed an outbreak in northwestern England, then an outbreak in London and finally a general increase in infections nationally.Under the first scenario, local authorities in the northwest saw a persistent rise in infections and the measures taken by councils failed to stem the tide. Johnson and Sunak agreed that the first lever pulled should be additional restrictions on household interactions. “There must be quick, decisive action,” Johnson said.That evening, the fictional scenario became reality as the prime minister was presented with Office for National Statistics data showing a 66% rise in infections in a fortnight, with increases in Blackburn, Bradford and Manchester. Where does that 66% figure come from? The ONS ...