“It really felt like a war”: Professor Van-Tam Shares His Pandemic Experience 20

“They just play James Blunt songs all the time when we’re trying to study”

“We only recently discovered that he has been lying about going to UoN and the year he was in - he goes to Trent”

“Flatmate’s boyfriend has been squatting in our flat for 6 weeks”

“Housemate left a 4 pack of sausage rolls in the communal cupboard for so long they disintegrated”

“They often left the front door open”

“It really felt like a war”: Professor Van-Tam Shares His Pandemic Experience

Despite the stresses of existing in the public eye to address such a serious issue, he asserted that there were lighter moments: “You know, the kind of public accolade, and the T-shirts, and the mugs and all those kind of daft bits, which as a scientist, you don’t go looking for.”

Without apparently seeking it, Professor Van-Tam developed a devoted fan base during the first lockdown. His idolisation by some resulted in the creation of very interesting merchandise. A Van-Tam prayer candle - selling on Amazon for £18 at one stage - qualified as “the craziest and the most amusing thing!”

He also mentioned a Facebook page established in his honour, jovially adding: “I’m surprised you’re not a member of the the JVT Facebook Appreciation Society!” The group has thousands of members, however, the professor conceded, “but I don’t go on that.”

I asked Professor Van-Tam about his routine before his high-profile press conferences. He revealed that ahead of Downing Street appearances he would be fueled by “a good cup of tea…It’s served in lovely fine bone china”. I point to the floral teacup on his table and ask if that’s the type. He nods: “It’s in the kind of genre of the Downing Street cup and saucer I liked to drink from.”

The other part of his routine was to find Larry The Cat: “I like cats, and a little bit of fur therapy before you do something stressful is quite calming.” I inquired what Larry - perhaps currently the most permanent member of the British political scene - is like, and he revealed that Larry has two distinct sides: “He’s generally friendly but, because of the large number of visitors, he is self-willed, and does what he wants.”

Lucinda Dodd met with Britain’s famous one-time Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Professor Sir Jonathan Van-Tam, in his University of Nottingham (UoN) office to discuss his experience of working through a pandemic which, he fears, may not be the last of our lifetimes.

When I visited Jonathan Van-Tam in his university office I was immediately struck by three intriguing items on his table. There was a mug featuring his photo-shopped face, a model of an old-fashioned ambulance and a reptile object I can’t quite identify. When asked about the reptile, he revealed:

“That’s a leaving gift from another wing of the government,” before explaining that it’s a pangolin. He further expanded that the reptile was “implicated potentially in the movement of the SARS-CoV-2 virus - from bats, to pangolins, to humans - and so they decided to gift me with a plastic pangolin.”

Addressing the other two items on his desk, he shared that four medical regiments gave him the model of a Land Rover ambulance once deployed by the British Army after he presented a lecture for them. Rotating the mug to show more of his face, he declared “This is a Lincoln City mug. The boys and girls in the Department of Social Care have carefully emblazoned me on, knowing full well that if Boston United - that’s my team - have any kind of arch rivals, it’s Lincoln!”

Professor Van-Tam became an overnight household name during the pandemic. Regarding this sudden fame, he shared that prior to assuming his government advisory role, he received training to prepare him for potential media exposure. However, he insists: “Nothing prepares you for the amount of publicity that I got during the Covid pandemic. Nothing made us able to predict the daily press conferences.”