For those of us interested in developing norms for effective scientific advising, the SAGE minutes (59 sets of which are now publicly available) are a valuable resource. Drawing on these minutes, I consider the wider lessons for norms of scientific advising that can be learned from the UK's initial response to coronavirus, highlighting five key issues: (i) the division of advisory labour, (ii) the grain of recommendations, (iii) the role of worst-case scenarios, (iv) switching cost asymmetries and (v) the difference between independence and neutrality.