Hope springs…

Even in the darkest of times there is always hope, and in this particular crisis many of us have placed ours in the extraordinary efforts by scientists and medics, a sizable number of them here in the United Kingdom, to find a vaccine and treatments for Covid-19. Today, we can reveal details of work conducted by specialists at the Royal Brompton Hospital and Imperial College London into whether bloodthinners could reduce coronavirus mortality.

It is obviously far too early to draw definitive conclusions, and the researchers themselves are cautious. However high the stakes might be, scientific research is not the sort of business that should be rushed. But as we learn more about the virus, and the experts continue their work, would it be wrong to feel a little hopeful?