The news of the birth of a healthy baby boy for UK PM Boris Johnson and his fiancee Carrie Symonds today elicited congratulations from across the political spectrum - a positive headline amid all those difficult, tragic and daunting ones.

Perhaps in a sign of the times, the prime minister was back at work within hours.

But today it fell to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to deliver the sombre news that more than 26,000 people have died in the UK, with deaths inside and outside hospitals merged in the same total.

Despite the stark figures, Downing Street has resisted suggestions that the care sector was neglected as the government machine worked to ensure that the NHS could cope.

And it’s true to say that the care sector is a more disparate system than the health service, with settings run by a variety of local authorities, companies and charities - not to mention those who receive care in their own homes.

Regardless, ministers are now under significant pressure to reach, support and help those people whom some say have been forgotten.

That’s the immediate challenge.

But a longer-term question may be whether the adult social care sector finally gets the far-reaching reforms that have been promised by politicians for years.