here’s so much deja vu, you have to pinch yourself. The difference in this particular version of Groundhog Day is that Boris Johnson learns nothing from his mistakes. Last time, lockdown came too late, thousands of lives might have been saved and delay only prolonged the outbreak. Yesterday, Rishi Sunak said, “We must learn to live without fear”, as he cast thousands of furloughed workers on to the mercies of universal credit. The speed of rule-relaxing has led to dizzying and contradictory advice. It’s only a matter of weeks since Johnson was bullying people back to work in their offices, with the Telegraph darkly warning, “Go back to work or risk losing your job”, while pressure was put on civil servants to flock back to their offices, no matter how well they worked from home. Office workers, however, balked at putting the survival of Pret and Starbucks ahead of their own. Yet everyone knew there would be a second wave: just like the first time, we’ve stood and watched as the virus has gained momentum across Europe. On our Brexit island, Johnson has appeared to rely on John of Gaunt’s miracle of British exceptionalism: “This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war”. Yesterday, Matt Hancock estimated that almost 10,000 people a day were contracting coronavirus in the UK. Even deniers can’t explain away the steep upward trajectory. With Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland imposing stricter regimes, English people from six different households can still meet indoors, despite the fact that such social mixing is a likely high cause of infection. Soon after Johnson’s feeble announcement of new rules, research suggested the public was well ahead of him. Though we may have all witnessed swaggering, infuriating young men refusing to wear masks, polls show that attitude is rare. Market research company Savanta ComRes found that 73% think mask-wearing by retail and hospitality workers and in taxis will have a good effect, while working from home is backed by 72%, and 70% of people support no more public attendance at sports events. Meanwhile, Ipsos Mori found that 60% back the rule of six and only 17% oppose it (the poll doesn’t say if they think it too strict or too lax). Even among the 18-34 age group, who have suffered miserable months of lockdown away from friends, 49% agree with the rule, and only 23% oppose it. The story changes over the health secretary’s contact-tracing app announced yesterday. As few as 10% of people are expected to sign up, with the Times reporting it could be plagued by one in three false positives. If so, the app will join the disastrous testing system, which has often failed to generate results within the crucial 24-hour period, undermining public trust in the government’s response and leaving us to navigate our own risks. Remember how grave the Monday message was from Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance? They prepared the way for far more serious action than shutting pubs an hour early. Members of Sage are increasingly voicing their concerns to the media: Prof Cath Noakes, unlike most, went public, proclaiming that the new measures “won’t cut it” in reducing the spread of the virus. Johnson has picked the science to suit his political agenda. The Spectator revealed that Sweden’s Anders Tegnell – he of the let-it-rip policy that has left Sweden with far more deaths per capita than its locked-down Nordic neighbours – briefed No 10 before Tuesday’s announcement. Even Tegnell now advocates three-week lockdowns and school closures in areas with the highest rates of transmission. Scientists are not gods, nor robots. They are humans, with all the character idiosyncrasies that follow. With two camps each putting their names to two different letters for and against tougher controls, how are non-scientists to judge which policy choices are the most effective? The herd immunity gang is led by Prof Carl Heneghan and Prof Sunetra Gupta, both academics with ultra-impressive titles who from the start adopted surprisingly strong stances against lockdown. Alarm was raised at the other leading signatory, Prof Karol Sikora, private cancer clinic owner and serial attacker of the health service, who told Newsnight that the NHS was “the last bastion of communism – it is a monolithic, unmanageable and inefficient system”. (He advocates a system with private top-ups.) Professor Susan Michie, a member of the Covid-19 behavioural scientific advisory group, a subcommittee of Sage, warns: “When a small group of scientists with a view that is contrary to the overwhelming majority of public health experts are given considerable attention in the media, one has to ask why.” She suggests not so much a political motive, but a character trait among some scientists, who are unable to change their minds when the evidence changes. Instead they double down on their stand, cherry-picking the facts that fit, as we all tend to do. Michie changed her mind on masks. In May, she published a piece arguing they might not help protect against Covid, but publicly reversed that position when evidence showed that masks help. She says that “it is dangerous to speculate on the motives of individuals” – but “those who seek to play down the threat from Covid-19 have a responsibility to engage dispassionately with the evidence that goes against their view”. Her co-author on that masks report, Prof Robert West, says of his work on smoking that it only takes the sowing of a few seeds of scientific doubt to damage a public health message. “A tiny minority of scientists, who saw themselves as challengers of orthodoxy, were used by the tobacco industry to support the line that ‘scientists do not agree among themselves’.” What would most people do in Johnson’s position, confronted with varying scientific views? Adopt the precautionary principle. It doesn’t take an Einstein to observe the folly of Johnson doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result. Delaying inevitable tougher rules will likely do what it did before. Prolonging the pandemic worsens the economy as well as the roll-call of death and serious long-term Covid illness. But nothing in Johnson’s reckless life suggests any precautionary DNA in his selfish genes. • Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist