If we follow Boris Johnson's advice, coronavirus will spread | David Hunter

A large-scale return to work without the ability to test, trace and isolate risks creating super-spreader events

• David Hunter is a professor of epidemiology and medicine at the University of Oxford
• Coronavirus - latest updates

For over two months now, Britain's public health specialists have been asking why the government abandoned the basic infection-control practice of test, trace, isolate". Most of us have suggested that a system to do this was a precondition of easing the lockdown. The key words in Boris Johnson's speech on Sunday were you should go to work if you can't work from home". He made no mention of preparations for tracing and testing contacts of people who test positive for Covid-19. In the plan published today, a newly appointed test and trace taskforce will begin to develop such a system.

The countries that have succeeded in taming their coronavirus epidemics - such as South Korea, Taiwan, China, Australia and New Zealand - differ from the UK in many ways. But they all have in common test, trace, isolate" as the centrepiece of their strategy.