We want to be told the truth

It may not seem like it as we go into three more weeks of lockdown and the death toll mounts, but there is a glimmer of light at the end of the corona tunnel. Hospital admissions are beginning to plateau. There are hopes of a vaccine as early as September.

Our unity of purpose in defeating this invader remains undimmed – from the collective Thursday turnout to applaud heroic key workers to individual acts of kindness in delivering supplies to the vulnerable.

And Captain Tom Moore’s herculean effort to raise more than £23million for the NHS is breathtaking. We all salute you, sir.

It is too early to say whether we are witnessing the beginning of the end of this war. But at least we are at the end of the beginning.

We are winning the Battle of Britain but there is still a way to go before D-Day.

On the NHS frontline and in care homes where the struggle is at its most ferocious, the picture is not so rosy.

Personal protection for doctors, nurses and care workers was in short supply when this crisis began and supplies are getting shorter.

RESTRICTIONS

A nurse tells us she must break safety rules by reusing syringes because they are running out. There is not enough testing to protect them and those they look after. And Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s target of 100,000 tests a day seems more dream than imminent scenario.

First Secretary Dominic Raab outlines conditions to be met before lockdown can be lifted. But in terms too vague to be meaningful.

The British people are grown-ups. They can be trusted with the truth. And he should tell it like it is, even if that truth is further restrictions.

We are told at each No10 press conference that the Government will follow the scientific advice. But that too is sometimes contradictory.

There was the dangerous fallacy of creating herd immunity until it dawned how many lives that would cost.

We were told that face masks were useless and then that they might yet prove useful. We were told to use paracetamol and not ibuprofen if we succumbed to the disease, and then that ibuprofen might be all right after all.

Which shows that while scientists may know more, they do not always know best. They can flounder in the dark just like the politicians.

We do not blame them for that. This is a new virus yet to be understood which acts with unpredictable consequences. Fighting it means making much of it up as we go along.

But it is no good machine-gunning us with optimistic figures about PPE and testing to make us feel better when those staffing the frontline tell of a grimmer, more grisly, reality.

Yes, there is light at the end of the tunnel. But what we need to know now is quite where that tunnel might end.

Truth is the least that those who have lost so much deserve.