We are marooned with no end in sight as ministers wait for the PM to return or for public opinion to shift

If you have no idea when Britain’s lockdown will end, then you’re in good company. Cabinet members are just as much in the dark. They’re not quite sure about the ‘five tests’ we keep hearing about, or what firm criteria would be used to judge them. They suspect there’s a sixth test: the opinion polls, still overwhelmingly supportive of a longer lockdown. So if you see ministers getting angry when asked about an exit strategy, this is why. They have no answer to give.

The Prime Minister did make a coherent case for lockdown. The modelling suggested that the NHS was about to be overwhelmed by demand for intensive care beds, so we all needed to stay home to “buy time” for the health service to scale up. We’d hunker down meanwhile.

The forecasts, then, were terrifying. One MP told me that his local hospital had just eight spare critical care beds, and had been told it could soon see hundreds of patients needing ventilators. Operation Scale Up began.

It was a huge success. Official figures have not been released, but I’m told that even last week - when daily deaths were at their worst - Covid patients occupied about a third of all intensive care beds. Those with other ailments occupied another third. The final third lay empty. Some MPs have concerns about how this happened, about how many patients were discharged - or denied treatment - to create space. But at the time, NHS staff were told to do whatever was necessary to prepare. Its mission was to prepare for a Wuhan-style Covid onslaught.