Thanks, Steve.

As someone who actually has 'O' level Greek and, more importantly, worked on public health strategy in central London for several years, I'm well aware of the meaning of pandemic, unlike Jeri it seems.

Literally, it means the whole (or all the) people. It does not have to apply to the entire world population, but can be used to refer to a continent or a bloc of countries.

My point in raising the issue was that there is more than just one pandemic currently affecting the health of a people at this present time. The Cemtral and West African outbreaks of the Ebola virus in 2014-2016 were rightly termed a pandemic because of the large number of people affected. For the record, Ebola virus disease has a fatality rate of 50%, somewhat higher than the Covid-19 mortality rate.

Apologies for diverting this thread.

Returning to UK politics, does anyone have any theories why Cummings's seven-hour marathon a) flattered Sunak, or b) didn't mention Gove at all?