Chronic kidney disease covers people with a wide range of symptom severity. Those at stage one usually have no obvious symptoms, or possibly blood in their urine. Those with stage five disease, like Harris, have lost nearly all kidney function. Yet Whitty’s comments had people at stage one unnecessarily worried that they’d have to go into self-isolation, Harris told The BMJ. They were asking whether they should go to work, or let their children go to school, she explains. “That’s been a big challenge—trying to interpret for patients.”