A government expert claimed quarantine had been imposed on a fictional date

Lockdown has been a long and arduous journey for many of us. It has been hard to keep track of what day and date on the calendar it actually is.

It would seem OK for members of the public to make this sort of mistake but surely government experts should be a bit more alert and not make up days that don't exist.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what England's deputy chief medical officer, professor Jonathan Van-Tam did during Monday's coronavirus press briefing.

While being quizzed on why the government didn't impose quarantine onto international travellers sooner, Van-Tam claimed that they had, on 29 February and 30 February, a day that didn't happen.

He said:

On the question of quarantine: why didn't we do it previously? And we're talking subject to ministerial announcements about maybe doing it now. Um, well my recollection is we did do it before.

On the 29th of February and then I think on the 30th of February we announced that travellers returning from the hotspots of Wuhan. They had to self-isolate at home for 14 days.

We can't really say anything more on this, other than bury our heads into our hands and just hope that everything else that the government has said recently is airtight and not full of fictional dates and pieces of fantasy.

As you can probably imagine, Piers Morgan, who has been a fierce critic of the government since the pandemic began, was left bemused by this moment.

And he wasn't the only one.

Although it has come later than some would have liked the government has announced that it is now recommending everyone that is arriving in the UK to self-isolate for 14 days to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

The regulations are not expected to come into effect until early June, however it has since been reported that anyone arriving from a country with a low infection rate could be exempt from the rules in the future.