Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, a key figure in the Covid pandemic response, has been pictured dressed as a nun while supporting his football team.
The football-mad scientist, 60, became a household name during lockdown for his use of colourful football metaphors to explain the fight against the virus.
He wore the full nun outfit along with a cross around his neck during sixth-tier Boston United’s game at Hereford on Saturday.
It is tradition to wear fancy dress for the last away game of the season among football fans.
Boston United, often known by their nickname The Pilgrims in reference to the group who left England and sailed to North America, won the match 2-0.
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam was pictured dressed as a nun while supporting his football team
The football-mad scientist, 60, became a household name during lockdown for his use of colourful football metaphors to explain the fight against the virus
Prof Van-Tam was England’s former deputy chief medical officer was helped explain the pandemic to the public
Prof Van-Tam, who also sits as the chairman of the Lincolnshire Football Association, told the Telegraph: ‘I am a lifelong and proud Pilgrims fan.
‘I love an ‘awayday’, and being part of our immensely dedicated travelling support, whenever I have the time, taking part in all the traditions.’
Prof Van-Tam was England’s former deputy chief medical officer – who quit his role in March 2022 as the pandemic era fizzled out.
He has fronted many Downing Street press conferences, attracting a legion of fans who have bought T-shirts with his face and phrases emblazoned across the front.
He has been a fan of Boston United since he was a boy after his grandad took him to his first match when he was seven.
The pair would cycle three and a half miles each way to York Street to watch the Lincolnshire side in the Northern Premier League against the likes of Morecambe, Wigan Athletic and Macclesfield Town.
The former Boston Grammar School pupil was nine when he was part of a club-record 11,000 crowd at York Street for an FA Cup third-round replay against Derby County in 1974.
Prof Van-Tam became Sir Jonathan when he was knighted for his services to public health as a member of the vaccines taskforce during his time as deputy CMO. Pictured: Sir Jonathan being made a Knight by Prince William in June 2022
He has fronted many Downing Street press conferences, attracting a legion of fans who have bought T-shirts with his face and phrases emblazoned across the front
A mug inspired by his nickname JVT – ‘JV Tea’ – went up on sale for his fans to purchase
Fans began to mimic his colourful football metaphors to explain the fight against the virus
The scientist became an unlikely form of fashion inspiration
A black Professor Jonathan Van-Tam Appreciation Society jumper with his face imprinted
Prof Jonathan Van-Tam speaks to Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain in February 2021
Britain’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England Jonathan Van-Tam gives an update on the coronavirus on April 28, 2021
Sir Jonathan Van-Tam gives evidence to the Covid inquiry on November 22, 2023
Derby County had been champions of England just 18 months previously but Boston managed to hold them to a 0-0 draw at the Baseball Ground.
When Boston United built the sparkling new Jakemans Community Stadium in 2020, Prof Van-Tam bought a sports bar sign from the old York Street ground to be proudly displayed in his living room.
In Match 2022, he invited fellow lockdown scientist and his boss throughout the pandemic Prof Sir Chris Whitty to watch Boston United play.
Sir Chris said after the match he was not as much a football fan as ‘JVT’ but he heard about Boston ‘every single Monday morning’ so knew more about them than ‘anyone in the country’.
In 2023, Prof Van-Tam was awarded the David Attenborough Award by The Royal Society for his ‘outstanding public engagement with science’ through communicating COVID-19.
In August Prof Van-Tam joined vaccine giant Moderna as a part-time adviser. He had held roles with other pharmaceutical firms in the early 2000s, including a stint at SmithKline Beecham, Roche and Sanofi-Pasteur.
The part-time role is part of his ‘portfolio-based career’, which includes his position as a strategy advisor in medicine at the University of Nottingham.
However, his career during the pandemic was not all football-related metaphors.
At the Covid inquiry in November he revealed how the police had urged his family to flee in the middle of the night after they received death threats.
When asked about his relationship with Sir Chris, who was Prof Van-Tam’s boss as England’s chief medical officer, he admitted to the inquiry they were ‘different personalities’.
He said: ‘I am the one who chases the ball. Chris is the one who looks at the ball before deciding to chase it.’
Sir Chris makes a ‘more thoughtful and qualified decision’, he added.
Prof Van-Tam previously sparked panic and worry across the UK in the early days of the Covid crisis, when admitting that the country may have to ‘live with’ the virus for years before a vaccine was found.
He also hit headlines in December 2020 when he warned that Brits may wear face masks for years to come — even after a successful coronavirus vaccine became available.
Prof Van-Tam also clashed with other scientists during the pandemic, including when claiming the outbreak would be ‘a lot calmer’ by Easter 2022, when others warned that it could take years to become a manageable, seasonal virus.
He has also not been shy to call out advisers for appearing to break the rules.
Prof Van-Tam made his feelings clear on Dominic Cummings’ infamous trip to Barnard Castle, declaring pointedly at a TV press conference: ‘The rules are clear and they have always been clear. In my opinion they are for the benefit of all and they apply to all’.
He graduated in medicine from the University of Nottingham in 1987.
After five years of hospital-based clinical medicine, he trained in public health and epidemiology developing an interest in influenza and respiratory viruses.
How JVT’s colourful analogies helped the public understand the pandemic and made him a household name
Defensive midfielders
JVT, a fan of Boston United, likened the vaccination programme to defensive football players whose job it was to ‘watch everybody’s back’.
At a Downing Street press conference he said: ‘A bit like a football game where the strikers who score the wonder goals are the ones who make the headlines, actually, the hard yards are done by the defenders and by the defensive midfielders tracking back, tracking back for 90 minutes of the whole game, watching everybody’s back.
‘This is what it’s going to be about now, tracking back and making sure that we finish the job properly in the phase one cohorts before we move on.’
Grand National
He compared the pandemic to the Aintree horse race when he warned Britain could not fall at the final fence.
‘The vaccine effects are going to take three months until we see them properly, and until then no-one can relax,’ he told The Sun.
‘We are probably in the last few furlongs of this race – like in the Grand National. We just have a couple more fences, we have just got to stick with it.’
Penalties
Football is a common tool used by JVT to explain Britain’s progress through the coronavirus pandemic.
He once described the development of the Pfizer vaccine to reaching the penalties at the end of the play-off final.
‘So this is like… getting to the end of the play-off final, it’s gone to penalties, the first player goes up and scores a goal.
‘You haven’t won the cup yet, but what it does is, it tells you that the goalkeeper can be beaten.’
Landing a plane
The progress of the vaccine rollout has been compared to different forms of transport, including a plane coming in to land.
JVT said: ‘Do I believe that we are now on the glide path to landing this plane? Yes I do.
‘Do I accept that sometimes when you are on the glide path, you can have a side wind and the landing is not totally straightforward, totally textbook? Of course.’
Crowded trains
JVT said the pandemic was like waiting on a platform for a train, with the lights ‘a long way off’.
He said: ‘This to me is like a train journey, it’s wet, it’s windy, it’s horrible.
‘Two miles down the tracks, two lights appear and it’s the train and it’s a long way off and we’re at that point at the moment. That’s the efficacy result.
‘Then we hope the train slows down safely to get into the station, that’s the safety data, and then the train stops.
‘And at that point, the doors don’t open, the guard has to make sure it’s safe to open the doors. That’s the MHRA, that’s the regulator.’
He said the train was the vaccine, and he hoped when it was ready there would not be ‘an unholy scramble for the seats’.
‘The JCVI has very clearly said which people need the seats most and they are the ones who should get on the train first.’
Red card
JVT said Britons needed to avoid getting a ‘red card’ from the Omicron coronavirus variant by getting a booster jab.
He said: ‘Omicron is like now picking up a couple of yellow cards to key players on top. We may be OK but we’re kind of starting to feel at risk that we might go down to 10 players and if that happens – or it’s a risk that’s going to happen – then we need everyone on the pitch to up their game in the meantime.
‘We’re not going to wait for the red card to happen, we are going to act decisively now and we’re asking everyone to up their game, we’re asking everyone to play their part in the urgency now of the booster programme, coming forward the moment you are called by the NHS.’
Yogurt
When explaining the extreme temperature the coronavirus vaccine must be stored at, JVT said it was not like a yogurt.
He added: ‘This is a complex product. It’s not a yoghurt that can be taken out of the fridge and put back in multiple times.’
And other famous moments…
When he ripped off his shirt
The professor proceeded to rip off his shirt and tie, disappearing into a cloud of smoke
Professor Van-Tam was hosting the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures on BBC Four when he ripped off his shirt and tie, disappeared into a cloud of smoke – and reemerged in slightly less formal attire, wearing a more casual blue shirt underneath his jacket.
The stunt sparked a typical reaction on social media, with one account comparing JVT – as he’s widely become known – to Steve Coogan’s comedy cringe character, Alan Partridge.
When he dealt calmly with an anti-vaxxer
JVT stayed completely calm and responded politely to an anti-vaxxer who screamed abuse at him in Westminster last June.
Geza Tarjanyi, 60, of Leyland, Lancashire, targeted the Deputy Chief Medical Officer as he walked into the Ministry of Defence building.
He said: ‘Are you Van-Tam, aren’t ya? What was really in that needle that you put into Matt Hancock? Why are you continually lying to the British people? Why are you smiling? This country’s supposed to be in the worst pandemic of all time.’
Professor Van-Tam politely replied: ‘It is.’ And when, following another torrent of abuse, the anti-vaxxer asked JVT if he was listening, the expert said: ‘What? I’m finding it difficult.’
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