Tell us straight, Matt Hancock – should we stockpile or not?

Editorial: Coronavirus need not put the country on lockdown, but the government should advise the public what sensible precautions to take

It is difficult to decide whether to be reassured or alarmed when the secretary of state for health and social care tells the nation that the country is not going to run out of food.

We are after all still at peace, in the very early stages of the coronavirus outbreak, and the ports are still flowing freely, still covered as they are by the Brexit transition arrangements (for which the nation might really count itself lucky). So when Matt Hancock told the Question Time audience that he was “confident” food supplies will not run out, their first instinct might have been to take him at his word; but their second might be to doubt.

Mr Hancock seems to have done the government’s credibility no good by asserting that ministers were working closely with supermarkets to ensure that the British people – self-isolators and non-self-isolators alike – will be able to sustain themselves in the coming months. Sources at the major chains have cast doubt on that. They seem to have a different understanding of the situation, perhaps informed by decades finessing some of the most efficient just-in-time supply chains in the world (particularly those traversing the busy English Channel).