This is exactly what Scott Morrison's been doing for the past three months. You can be critical and find fault, but the essential point is that he's been making, and taking, the critical decisions and probably actually enjoying this new role, playing father to the country.

You can hear it in those long press conferences in the PM's courtyard. You can watch it as he shakes his head slightly while discussing doing jigsaws as a family. You can share it as he reflects on what his grandmother did during the dark years of World War II.

What you can't do, however, is participate in it, because Morrison's quite clear about exactly who the decision-maker is in this situation: it's him. And this is an issue, because sometimes those choices aren't being explained.

One of those critical decisions he's making is whether children should attend childcare. On this issue, as with so many others, the PM has a firm position. "What we have always said in the health advice has been very clear and it has not changed", Morrison insisted on Thursday. "There is no health risk to children going to school or going to childcare, so that hasn't changed."

"The health advice is clear: children can go to childcare and children can go to school."

All, as the PM hoped, quite clear. But the way you parse the words is important.

Until today there's only been one case, around the world, where a child under seven has died because of the virus. By comparison to the over-80s, they look invulnerable, displaying either no symptoms or barely a sniffle while their grandparents are knocked down like flies. Morrison's stating the truth, but note his qualification.

The PM's precise point is there's "no health risk to children". This is critical, because it's not risk-free at all. It's a choice.

At the same moment Morrison was speaking, over at the Wesfarmers Centre of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases in Perth a medical team had just received news their research would be published in a prestigious medical journal. Their headline finding: children are "unlikely to have been the primary source of household SARS-CoV-2 infections". Similar to what the PM said, but not the same. The difference is vital.

In more than 90 percent of cases studied, the original vector, or person who brought the virus into the household, was an adult. That still leaves 9.7 percent of cases though, where it appears a child was responsible for infecting other members of the family. This finding completely changes the location of the hazard in the PM's statement. He's absolutely correct: the children aren't at risk - adults are.

The exact role played by children in transmitting the virus isn't really understood. We do know that young people play a significant role spreading the normal flu. That's why Associate Professor Asha Bowen and her research team were so keen to find out if it's the same with coronavirus. Her team plucked apart the detail of individual cases in China, Singapore, South Korea, Japan and Iran, and found, conclusively, that children aren't, normally, the source of household transmission clusters.

But sometimes they are.

This is the key fact that Morrison's statement left out. He correctly says the children aren't in danger. That's because, though, in a small number of cases, the hazard is transferred to adults. The risk is a grandparent scoops up a toddler for a kiss but unwittingly receives a dose of coronavirus in return. And because the child would most likely be asymptomatic, other members of the family have no idea they've been exposed to the virus until it's too late. During this period, while the disease isn't expressing itself in the bodies of infected people, the virus could jump from family member to family member. The risk is the entire family group becomes infected as a cluster, long before anybody realises something's wrong.

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The risk is small - but not negligible. It's a choice.

The focus is transferred. The aim is to close down the main danger, transmission between adults. Meanwhile, the virus will continue spreading asymptomatically among children. Over time "herd immunity" will develop, but, just occasionally, the coronavirus will flare up again seemingly randomly, in small clusters. Everyone will hope, desperately, that no child visits an old age home while they're infectious. In the meantime, everything gets back to normal and the hospitals aren't overloaded.

Characterise this as the long-term strategy. It accepts the danger will linger for a longer period but, in the end, the benefits are worthwhile. Immunity spreads and society continues to function. Effective treatments are developed, curbing the worst effects of disease and, eventually, a vaccine is developed. We learn to live with coronavirus.

The alternate strategy relies on a short-term lockdown with widespread testing to discover exactly where the virus lingers. In theory, it can then be isolated and eliminated until vaccines are rolled out. Eventually, though, we'll need to re-engage with the world - but that's where the disease is lurking, ready to strike. A new deadly wave could hit at any moment.

The government isn't ready to share this decision. Morrison's attitude is parental. He thinks he's best informed and so he's the right person to adjudicate the choices involved. It's his job and it's not one he'll shirk.

"This virus is going to take enough from Australians without putting parents in the position of having to choose between the economic wellbeing of their family or the care and support and education of their children," he said on Thursday. "I won't cop a situation where a parent is put in that place with their kids."

Morrison believes he's the decisive leader the times require.

And it's just your bad luck if you disagree with the choices he's making.