Is the Covid alert level still too high?

Cynics might wonder whether the timing of Matt Hancock’s announcement this morning that the Covid alert level is to be reduced from four to three is an attempt to deflect the government’s embarrassment from the failed test and trace app. The cynics may well be right with the timing (although the decision is ultimately in the hands of the Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty, and his counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). But more to the point: why was the alert level still at four when, by the government’s own definition, it should have been at three, and why is it now not being reduced to two? These are the Covid alert levels as described by the government:

5. As level 4 and there is a material risk of healthcare services being overwhelmed
4. A Covid-19 epidemic is in general circulation; transmission is high or is rising exponentially
3. Covid-19 is in general circulation
2.