Posted 5.30pm UK time

Government minister Robert Jenrick confirms what we expected; that the point of the tiered lockdown system is to ‘see us through’ until a vaccine becomes properly available.

‘The point of the tiered approach is, can we get tiers that are sufficiently robust to steer the country through the last few months before we manage to get the vaccine programme rolled out.’

But this thinking will be extremely costly (as if we haven’t lost enough), as William Parker explains in our latest print issue (available here):

‘Simply put, we have to learn to live with this virus. Most jump with outrage at such a statement, believing it means I wish for the virus to tear through the population, as our incompetent Health Secretary Matt Hancock put it. That is simply not the case. We should be cautious in our everyday lives and prioritise the care of those most at risk, but we cannot continue to turn the nation’s economy on and off until, and if, a vaccine arrives.

‘Coronavirus is here to stay for a long time and it is time to wake up to that fact instead of allowing ourselves to be whipped into a Covid hysteria fuelled by mostly unjustified fear.’