The uncomfortable questions facing ministers about ending coronavirus lockdown

The government must start turning to its exit strategy, writes Sean O'Grady – but there are difficult decisions to be made

With the country stuck inside, ministers begin planning their endgame (Angela Christofilou)

They call it the “exit strategy”. Especially these days, that is a rather depressing-sounding name for what is, in reality, a joyous thing – how the country is going to return to normal life: the time, you might say, when “we will meet again”.

Ministers are working on it right now, but obviously no decisions are yet made. They cannot be when the number of cases and fatalities have not peaked, and we do not know when they will. Indeed, at the moment there is more talk of toughening up the partial British lockdown (for example, by a ban on outdoors exercise) rather than relaxing it.

Even so, some European countries ahead of the UK on the spread of Covid-19 are now openly discussing easing travel and other restrictions in the near future, if only because their waves of cases have been so horrendous.