The vast majority of emails my office currently receives are unsurprisingly related to coronavirus. They may be from hospitals, businesses, scientists and families of those affected by the outbreak or anyone with a deep interest in the precision of articles. More than 7,000 items of editorial content with a connection to the coronavirus outbreak have been published by the Guardian and Observer since January. Where significant errors are identified, for example those involving statistics, medical provision or national measures, we have moved as quickly as possible to remedy. We gauge that less than half a percent of articles have resulted in corrections on such key matters, although many more claims of inaccuracy will be investigated and mistakes rectified where necessary. The task feels vast at times but also as if it could never be more important. Correspondence on urgent matters sometimes runs late into the night. We prioritise as we go, because the flow of emails rarely abates (it’s always breakfast time somewhere), but we wouldn’t be human if we weren’t occasionally distracted by a minor point of intrigue nicely put. I fell into happy correspondence the weekend before last with a medical specialist who wanted to know why the media was “incorrectly” spelling COVID-19 as Covid-19. I explained that, like most British newspapers, the Guardian’s style is to use uppercase for abbreviations that are written and spoken as a collection of letters, such as BBC, IMF and NHS, whereas acronyms pronounced as words go upper and lower, eg Nasa, Unicef and, now, Covid-19. The reader was remarkably understanding given that her query turned out to be more than passing curiosity: she was busily correcting scientific articles by authors who’d adopted the media’s style.

We each apologised for having caused the other work and moved on better informed about our respective fields. Those unfamiliar with the job of this office are often surprised that readers would get in touch about typos and grammar “at a time like this”. We might have felt the same at first, mindful also of the strains under which journalists are working. But credibility never goes out of style and being told about a lay/lie error (twice last week) can be a heartening reminder of the normal. Emails that start by recognising how it’s “important to preserve pedantry at a time of national crisis” are always going to raise a smile.

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