Can Britain avoid a second lockdown?

What comes next, now that the transmission rate and prevalence of Covid-19 have fallen significantly? (Before you shout at me, yes I know there is frustration and some bemusement among scientists that illness incidence and numbers of deaths have not dropped faster in the UK, but they have nonetheless reduced significantly, if not uniformly, everywhere).

There are detailed plans from the government for when and how to restart certain businesses and social activities in the coming six weeks. But there is not a clearly articulated strategy for how we are expected to live and work between now and the end of the year (and beyond).

So I’ve tried to piece together what ministers and officials have said privately and publicly about different elements of the longer-term strategy. Everything rests on a tripod:

1. The growing optimism that a vaccine may be ready for mass use, perhaps as soon as September.
2. The hope that testing, tracing and isolating the symptomatic and their contacts will continue to suppress the incidence of the ghastly virus.
3. The