Lockdown

Could we see ‘immunity passports’ in Britain? Ministers are reportedly discussing them as a route out of lockdown. According to today’s Guardian, the UK tech firm Onfido is in discussion with ministers about creating a ‘digital certificate’ that would be issued to those who have already been infected with coronavirus – who are presumably more immune – so they could return to some resemblance of normal life, including heading back into work.  The technology needed to carry out such a scheme is reportedly in the ‘discovery stage’ and big questions linger as to whether British bureaucracy – which has struggled to source plastic PPE and has trailed other countries in Covid-testing for months

How will the UK recover after lockdown? Although social distancing is expected to continue for months, talk has turned to how the government will deal with its coronavirus debts. The Treasury is seeking to raise £180 billion over the next three months to meet its pledges – putting the UK on course to see its budget deficit rise to a level never seen before in peacetime. Some estimates put borrowing this financial year at over £300 billion, far outpacing the years following the financial crash. This has led a number of public figures to predict a return to the Cameron and Osborne era with mass cuts in the years ahead. However, when Boris Johnson was

One of the key committees advising the government is SAGE — the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies. At the weekend, there was a rumpus after the Guardian reported that Dominic Cummings had been present for some of its meetings; though given the enormity of what was being discussed there would have been problems if no one from Downing Street was at these meetings. Last night, Bloomberg reported on the SAGE meeting of 18 March. Alex Morales and Suzi Ring wrote that Dominic Cummings had at that meeting raised questions, including asking ‘why a lockdown was not being imposed sooner’. I am informed that at that meeting Tim Gowers, a Cambridge maths professor and

Yep, the end is in sight, courtesy of other countries organising the practicalities for the return to some sort of normal life – shopping and schooling, as in Germany. That means Britain will, like it or not, be playing catchup sooner rather than later. And when this oddly dreamlike existence is over, it’s going to feel like that bit of the Sleeping Beauty when the court wakes up after its hundred year sleep, yawning and blinking and eyeing each other rather shyly. It’s partly the warm weather; being obliged to stay away from work when it’s sunny, with quite a lot of your wages paid by the government (if like