Transmission figures...

For just about the first time since lockdown began, on March 23, I feel a little optimism penetrating the gloom. The national figures - for infections, hospitalisations and deaths - continue to fall. The big question is whether the slight loosening of the regulations, and the ‘Black Lives Matter’ demonstrations, have allowed more transmissions to occur. Considering the virus’s incubation period, we won’t start to get an answer to that question until early next week.

England and Manchester City forward Raheem Sterling has backed the protests taking place across the UK, saying “the only disease right now is the racism that we are fighting”. However, if the figures subsequently rise, because people have been out in the streets, marching ‘shoulder to shoulder’, it would be a terrible irony, because black and brown people continue to be affected disproportionately by the virus.

Licensed today: the Drunken Duck gastropub near Ambleside...