Ministers are right to be cautious, but a clear lockdown exit strategy would give Britons hope

Editorial: The public, on the whole, has shown impressive compliance with rules that would otherwise be intolerable

(Illustration by Dave Brown)

There are many mysteries around the coronavirus pandemic, but no doubt that the current UK lockdown will continue for the foreseeable future.

The first minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, and the first minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, have already said as much. The various medical and scientific experts that the government relies on have made no secret that they feel there is insufficient evidence about the impact of the current restrictions to recommend replacing them soon. No one is making plans for a traditional Easter getaway.

Yet ministers in the UK government seem curiously shy about admitting the evident truth. In part this is because they have to abide by the formalities of the statutory 21-day review, though such things don’t always overcome the temptation to spin.