Poor leadership is the reason Britain has suffered the most deaths in Europe

Editorial: Many of the prime minister’s decisions were right but were taken with too much dither and delay. It’s never too soon to learn from mistakes

More than 100,000 lives have been lost in the UK during the pandemic (Dave Brown)

So, the country has a roadmap out of this phase of the coronavirus crisis. That counts as progress, given the usual chaotic character of government communications. Asked for a reasonable period of notice by educators, the prime minister has announced that schools won’t be open before 8 March in England, that there will be a review of the situation in mid-February, and a further announcement about schools in the week of 22 February. 

Schools are currently scheduled to reopen from around mid-February in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but that may not stand. Much depends, everywhere, on the progress of the vaccine programme, which has been highly impressive – with 7 million jabbed to relative safety so far.

The same parameters apply to the partial closure of borders and compulsory quarantine for those arriving from “red list” countries. The roadmap is a little obscured, however, as there is no start date yet for the fresh measures announced by the home secretary. Still, again it is an indication of the direction of travel, although precious time may be wasted in preventing new coronavirus variants from entering the country.