Even as late as 12 March 2020, as noted in paragraph 80, Sir Patrick Vallance, Government Chief Scientific Adviser, told a Government press conference that it was not possible to stop everyone being infected, and nor was that a desirable objective. The following day in a media interview Sir Patrick said that the aim of policy was: To try and reduce the peak, broaden the peak, not to suppress it completely. Also, because most people, the vast majority of people, get a mild illness, to build up some degree of herd immunity as well so that more people are immune to this disease and we reduce the transmission at the same time we protect those who are most vulnerable from it. Those are the key things we need to do.107 This reflected the views of the 23 people who participated in the SAGE meeting on 13 March, where the Group “was unanimous that measures seeking to completely suppress spread of Covid-19 will cause a second peak.”108 In practice this meant that social distancing policies were introduced gradually over a period of weeks.