Scientists urged to seek advice on new Covid strain from bloke off Twitter

After the announcement that a new strain of coronavirus has emerged, there have been calls for scientists to urgently seek advice from some bloke off Twitter.

Within minutes of the new strain being announced a bloke on Twitter was proclaiming it to be ‘nothing to worry about’ and yet, at the time of writing, he has still not been consulted by scientists.

“Viruses mutate. Nothing new here. End of,” wrote Derek Williams, a vehicle insurance claims processor from Chelmsford.

“Look, I’d be happy to give advice to the scientists,” he said.

“They could do with a good dose of common sense. But they just haven’t asked. You see, they’re wasting all this time and money sending the new strand off to Porton Down for study and everything. Viruses mutate, that’s all that happened. Nothing to worry about.”

Asked if he had any advice for the scientists, Mr Williams was happy to help.

“Yeah, look, they should just calm down a bit and stop trying to panic everyone just to make themselves feel important.”

We have reached out to Chief Medical Officer for England Chris Whitty and Government Chief Scientific Advisor Sir Patrick Vallance to see if they would accept the advice of Simon Williams, a bloke off Twitter, but they were unavailable for comment.