There will then be a “third wave” of deaths for Britain to contend with. This is made up, not of emergency cases, but of people who are developing conditions such as cancer and heart disease which are going undiagnosed because of the Covid crisis.

These patients would normally have face-to-face access to a GP and then rapid referral to secondary care for diagnosis and treatment where needed. But this vital, life-saving process has all but ground to a halt.

Currently endoscopies, which are used to diagnose some forms of cancers, have been stopped entirely due to the risk of aerosolising Covid-19, for example. MRI scans have also fallen off a cliff.

“Unlike the current peaks, this third wave may be spread out over a longer period of time. But make no mistake this could be could be a very deadly wave”, says Mr Batchelor.

There are no easy answers for the NHS in tackling these pressures. The treasury mantra of “efficiency” meant the NHS, like much of British industry, was running lean ahead of the crisis with virtually no spare capacity or resilience.

Ministers point out that the NHS has not been “overwhelmed” by Covid-19 in the same way as hospitals in Northern Italy but this has been achieved at the expense of suspending tens of millions of regular check-ups, tests, operations and treatments.

As we reported yesterday, the dash to get patients out of hospital beds in the later half of March and early April was so intense that many frail and vulnerable patients were transferred into nursing homes - some of them carrying the coronavirus.

Mitigating the two waves of indirect deaths will hinge on how the NHS deals with the vast waiting list of patients that is mounting.

Over a month ago, trusts were told to assume that they would "postpone all non-urgent elective operations from 15th April at the latest, for a period of at least three months".

Already 2.1 million scheduled operations are thought to have been cancelled and this is on top of the 4.5 million people who were on hospital waiting lists before the crisis.