A second deadly coronavirus spike is inevitable – and that’s one prediction I’d be happy to be wrong about

As a male on the wrong end of the actuarial tables, I’m terrified about just getting through the year. And I’ve not heard anything to reassure me yet

Never mind his trip to Durham, I’d rather know what sort of advice Dominic Cummings is giving Boris Johnson right now about easing the lockdown.

Is the adviser pushing this accelerating exit from safety? Is Johnson, ever the gambler, taking unwarranted risks with public health for the sake of generating sunny headlines to cheer people up and restore his shattered popularity? Who is whispering in his ear?

Because if it all goes wrong – as it might well – I want to know whose fault it is. And long before some rigged public inquiry lumbers its way to “learning lessons”, rather too late to be of any use.

I’m no epidemiologist, but I don’t need to be one to feel fear. As a male on the wrong end of the actuarial tables, and with loved ones in vulnerable categories, I’m terrified about just getting through the year. And I’ve not heard anything to reassure me yet.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

Even some of the official experts who are just about going along with the latest moves to open schools, shops and relaxing social restrictions sound worried; it’s been called “a dangerous moment”. Others are more outspoken. The Association of Public Health says clearly that ministers are making misjudgements.

I do understand why the economy is suffering, but I don’t see how sanctioning people meeting in ever larger groups in public or encouraging the “shielded” to leave their homes for exercise is going to boost GDP. The level of infections is demonstrably too high for our untried and modest test and trace infrastructure; the rate of transmission of the virus, and the R number, is too close to 1 to feel entirely safe about the future.

In some places the R number is probably more than 1 already – pointing to an imminent exponential acceleration of Covid-19 cases. The government suggests it can deal with hotspots by new local lockdowns; I’m not so sure that’ll stick, given the erosion in public support for the policy, or indeed if it is even practical on our densely populated little islands.

No one, I think, could claim to be surprised if there’s a second wave of deaths in six to eight weeks. I’ve seen it written that the government’s critics are salivating about the prospect of the NHS being overwhelmed and the political damage Lombardy-style images of suffering would inflict on Johnson’s poll ratings, though that response benefits nobody.

Well, here is one prediction – a second Covid-19 spike – that I’d be happy to be wrong about, for the very simple reason that if I am right I likely won’t be around to do any celebrating. I’d be delighted if the rate of cases continued to fall, even as economic and social life return to normal, and the government’s “baby steps” proved well judged and successful.

I’d love to see it. I just don’t believe I will.