Logically, some easing of the restrictions should begin tomorrow. When our shops were closed three weeks ago, we were told it was to buy time. “It’s vital to slow the spread of the disease,” said the Prime Minister in his televised address.

The intervening three weeks have not been wasted. We have more ventilators, more hospital beds, more protective gear. Our doctors, nurses and ancillary staff are facing their test with unfussy heroism. We have, thank God, avoided the horrors that overwhelmed some northern Italian hospitals. It is dreadful that people should be dying; but, as the Health Secretary confirmed on Friday, they are not dying for want of medical attention.

The stoppage was intended to allow the NHS to increase its capacity to the point where the peak of the disease would not overwhelm it. It worked. Yet, oddly, no one seems in a hurry to lift the prohibitions.

Eighty-nine per cent of voters support the quarantine – apparently regardless of the potential cost in lost liberty, lost livelihoods and, indeed, lost lives. Over a million more people have been pushed onto benefits. If the closures remain in place into next month, our GDP is set to fall by between 15 and 25 per cent in the second quarter – a drop no country can sustain. Every day that the embargoes remain in place adds billions to our liabilities and years to our eventual recovery.