Coronavirus Count

Our daily updated guide to key facts and information about the illness drawn from Government sources.

We hope that the Prime Minister will soon be back to his usual swashbuckling self. Until then, Raab should take over.

The choice is between this imperfect option and a worse one – which is letting the ship of state drift amidst a storm unprecented in its nature and reach. 

The question isn’t whether to end the lockdown. It’s when and how to do it. Can the Government rise to the challenge?

The Prime Minister’s hospitalisation accentuates the need for a new strategic structure to support a new strategic plan.

Liam Fox: The virus – what it is, what it means, and the two options open to Ministers for phasing out the shutdown

Whatever model is adopted or whatever alternative proposal is deemed better, the public need to know that there is an exit strategy in place.

Jay Singh-Sohal: We are being challenged in ways our country has not seen since the Second World War

The loss of our liberties is no good or easy thing to accept.  While our social life disappears, what we do have is time.

Can Starmer surprise us?

He will have to be more than a kind of North London John Smith if he wants to do more than just profit from the Government’s misfortunes. 

Brandon Lewis: In Northern Ireland, people are pulling together in amazing ways to combat the virus

I am redoubling my engagement with its business community, which needs to know that our committment to ensuring UK connectivity remains strong.

Henry Hill: Anger grows as devolution hinders coordinated response to the Covid-19 crisis

Also: Opposition parties force the SNP to abandon a bid to suspend trial by jury; and more good reading on the fallout from Alex Salmond’s acquittal.

John Redwood: The Government should prepare for a return to normal work for people not in the vulnerable categories

We are looking at a possible deep recession, with a big surge in jobless and the loss of substantial capacity to produce goods and services for the future.

Daniel Hannan: There will come a point at which the cost of containment will outweigh the cost of the virus

That grim calculation must at some point be made. Refusing to face it is not an act of high-mindedness, but of dereliction.

Coronavirus: some councils are doing better than others. And where are the Police and Crime Commissioners?

They should be ensuring that the police do not behave in a way that alienates people. Plus – the imperative to free up NHS beds.

WATCH: “This weekend, the first thousands of new ventilator devices will roll off the production line”, says Gove.

“We must also increase the capacity to provide oxygen to those worse affected by the disease.”

James Frayne: Public opinion is solidly behind the Government – for the time being, at least.

Very few businesses could survive a lockdown of the type we’re currently in for six months. A sustained one will have to be more focused.

Johnson as Churchill. How’s he doing?

The last word must lie with the voters, and their current answer, according to the polls, is: very well indeed.

Saving the NHS v saving the economy?

Ministers are walking the tightrope of trying to save both – which helps to put the words of the Deputy Chief Medical Officer yesterday in context.