There is still time to change tactics and take the attack to our remorseless enemy

World War V (for virus) is upon us, and our enemy is remorseless. Already we have lost important battles and ceded territory. Soon, we will pay for that timidity, as our hospitals work heroically around the clock to save as many critically-ill patients as possible. But it is not too late to strike back. Though we appear defenceless, that is because our two best weapons are invisible, just like the foe we now face.

If we do not grasp these unseen weapons, the rout will continue, harming our loved ones and breaking the economy beyond repair.

Boris Johnson always wanted to channel Winston Churchill. Now, he must have the courage to play Churchill to his own Chamberlain. He must reverse course and remember the words of his hero: “Never give in. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

We know that victory is possible. We see the results in Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea. The latter reversed an epidemic that would have been as bad as Italy’s. As infected individuals return from Europe, these nations are quarantining arrivals to keep themselves safe. Their societies remain largely open and their caseloads manageable.

When the WHO announced the pandemic, it said that the novel virus could still be suppressed. Its director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said: “We have never before seen a pandemic that can be controlled.” He added: “Even those countries with community transmission or large clusters can turn the tide.” South Korea did so with the highest levels of testing in the world, plus contact tracing and innovative tech, such as temperature checks at building entrances. Britain has not chosen this route. We have evidence that contact tracing can be effective, as the documents consulted by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies show. Yet the Government chose to reallocate resources elsewhere when it moved from Contain to Delay. In doing so, it accepted community transmission as irreversible.

Our levels of testing are also nowhere near enough to chase the virus to earth. We have no eyes on our enemy’s manoeuvres. Estimates for undetected cases range from 250,000 to 19 million. The Government is working hard to increase testing, but its focus is on holding the line in hospital settings. We need ambition for testing on another order of magnitude to beat the disease back.

The Government’s hope for “herd immunity” has been replaced by a partial lockdown, now that it is clear how many people the original plan would have sacrificed. But it is still acting as if the best we can do is to manage the epidemic, and its methods are too slow. This will bring a terrible reckoning.

Which brings me to the two invisible weapons that can still protect us from the worst: ingenuity and time. The top minds of the entire world are now focused on this threat. A vaccine is far off, but better, faster tests and promising new treatments, such as the antimalarial drug chloroquine, are being developed at extraordinary speed. If we suppress the virus – as other nations have shown we can, even at this late hour – we buy ourselves precious time to innovate, and to ramp up testing to the levels we need. Professor Neil Ferguson, the lead author on the Imperial College paper which ruled out herd immunity, tweeted that, once we get the virus under control, “large-scale readily available testing, combined with case isolation and contact tracing – perhaps assisted by technological solutions – may be key”.

A determined change of strategy could achieve that control fast, within weeks, not months. It is too late to stop the first wave of cases from crashing on to our health system. But we do not have to let in the entire ocean.

Mr Johnson has rightly put Britain on a wartime footing. But you cannot win a war on the defensive. Here is the battle plan we need: test, track and isolate. “Test, test, test” every case, as Dr Tedros of the WHO recommends. Trace contacts and track infection with every technological trick we can invent, like South Korea and Singapore. And isolate to stop the spread. Stop travel. Quarantine all cases. Lock down the worst-affected parts of the country for a few weeks to put out the fire that we have let rage. With transmission under control and universal testing we could restore near-normality in less than two months, as in Asia. Shattered businesses could start to piece themselves back together. Deaths could stay in the thousands.

The time for appeasement is over. We must defend our island, and so we must fight this enemy, fast and hard: on the beaches, in the fields and in the streets, on every hill – until V once again stands not for virus, but victory.

You cannot win a war on the defensive. Here is the battle plan we need: test, track and isolate. The time for appeasement is over. We must fight, fast and hard. Until V stands not for virus, but victory