Have faith and we will defeat this deadly virus
on such a scale would now be greeted as a sign that we were out of the woods and heading into sunlit uplands.
So the Queen’s address to the nation, to be broadcast this evening, marks one of the most sombre moments of her 68-year reign. Her Majesty’s message has been awaited for some time but was always intended, from the moment of its conception, to serve as a rallying point for the nation as it confronted the darkest point in the crisis.that it should be broadcast today tells us that moment is very close at hand.
As someone who lived through the Blitz, the Queen is one of a select band who can say they have stared worse foes than coronavirus in the face and come through. There is almost nothing else in living memory that has brought death to these shores at such a rate.
We must rally together now, just as the wartime generation did, and we are fortunate indeed to have in Her Majesty a figurehead whose words will resonate in every household. The difficulties facing us all in the weeks immediately ahead cannot be overstated. But, collectively, the British people possess the resilience and resourcefulness to surmount them.
The past seven days have seen solid progress being made in our capacity to fight back against this disease. More new popup hospitals to give the seriously ill the very best chance of pulling through are in preparation. More ventilators are coming on stream and more protective equipment is getting to the NHS frontline.
The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has modified his plans to help businesses in order to make securing funds a faster and simpler process. Meanwhile, Health Secretary
Matthew Hancock has emerged from selfisolation to take a grip on an issue that has become a favourite bugbear of the broadcast media – the slowness of the uplift in testing people for the virus.
Currently expanding antigen testing – to see whether an ill person has the virus and also to allow self-isolating NHS staff to get back to the frontline – is the most pressing priority. Soon, carrying out huge numbers of antibody tests, to see who has had the virus and recovered, will become crucial to allowing people to escape from restrictions that have halted normal life and caused so much economic damage already. We learned last week that the first such tests are already being conducted by Britain’s military research facility at Porton Down.
Mr Hancock has boldly set a target of reaching a total of 100,000 tests of all kinds each day by the end of the month – a tenfold increase – and is already showing a terrier-like tenacity in pursuing that goal.
But, despite it being the latest focus of various pundits, testing is no panacea. There is no single, miracle solution that can halt this disease.
Previously, TV pundits have berated ministers about shortages of ventilators or lack of masks and protective gowns for NHS staff or the alleged need for even more stringent lockdowns.
It is one thing for the media to keep the Government on its toes by exercising due scrutiny – as this newspaper has sought to do and will continue to do throughout the crisis – but quite another to risk creating a sense of defeatism by hyping up every setback and difficulty. Margaret Thatcher once used the term “Moaning Minnies” to describe those addicted to pumping out an uninterrupted stream of complaint.
We must not allow a modern Moaning Minnie tendency to convince us that everything is a shambles or lead us to think there is no point in following the instruction to stay at home in order to help the NHS and save lives.
There is every point in sticking to the plan. Indeed, it is our duty to do so, no matter how fed up each of us becomes with staring at the same four walls while the sun comes out in Easter week.
WE WERE always told that there would be a lag between the implementation of social distancing measures and a fall in new infections and, ultimately, in daily deaths too. It was heartening yesterday to hear Professor Neil Ferguson, one of the leading experts guiding the Government, say he expects that continued compliance with the measures is likely to allow some relaxation in them within weeks.
Polling data and statistics for transport usage show the vast majority of us are following the strategy, not least because the pleas for us to do so from NHS staff have packed such a powerful emotional punch. Now we will have the same message coming from our head of state too.
We are all in this battle together and that includes the Opposition Labour Party under its new leader Sir Keir Starmer. It is to be hoped that he will seek to play a more constructive role in public life than did his unlamented predecessor.
There is no proven optimal combination of policies with which to banish this drastic menace to human health. In these circumstances getting behind recommendations from our leading scientific experts – which are made on the basis of the balance of probability, rather than certainty – is not only the logical thing to do but the patriotic thing as well.
Over the past month or so we have been asked to make – and have largely acquiesced in – quite remarkable changes to our normal lives. The British people have demonstrated massive willpower and a keen sense of social responsibility. They have shown, as Boris Johnson noted, that there really is such a thing as society and will look forward to that sentiment being further reflected in political action once this crisis is over.
Now is not the time to sow seeds of dissent or to falter. It is a time for all of us to reflect on our obligations towards our families, our communities and our nation.
Let us listen carefully to Her Majesty’s words this evening and at least aspire in coming days to show a commitment to the common good that can stand comparison with the level she has exhibited so wonderfully over so many years of public service.
We may be physically apart from each other right now but a spirit of togetherness is the only way through this.