Moonshot testing is the only way to escape this mess

On Covid, there is a basic question: what is the government’s strategy? No one seems to know what ministers are doing and why. But how could we? Neither do they.

The lockdown approach is based on a premise, which has turned out to be false: that we could suppress and eliminate the virus – or at least keep it under control until the arrival of a vaccine. But there is no reason to believe that there will be a vaccine any time soon.

Pharmaceutical companies have spent billions on research into vaccines for HIV and the common cold. Thus far, those efforts have been unavailing. If a Covid vaccine were discovered – and that is a huge if – it might become available among the ruins of the British economy. That is a likely consequence if the current lockdown policy stumbles on into next year. So is a greatly increased death rate among cancer and heart disease sufferers.