QUITE RIGHTLY, the Government moved yesterday to resolve two more anomalies in our response to Covid.

Firstly, the requirement that school “bubbles” should self-isolate has been doing more damage to children through loss of education than they have suffered through contracting the virus. Last week, there were 640,000 children off school although only four per cent of them had the virus. This is a sledgehammer and nut situation.

Similarly, if we believe in the vaccine’s effectiveness, forcing double jabbed people to quarantine if they have been in contact with a potentially infected person is also overkill.

However, it doesn’t feel as if the public is quite in step with the Government’s big bang approach to freedom. So far the Government has itself taken small steps on its roadmap and then waited five weeks to evaluate them.

Suddenly, all legal restrictions will be removed, but many people – and businesses – feel that sensible precautions, like the wearing of facemasks and the keeping of a metre distance, should still be in place.

The humble mask is becoming an unlikely totemic issue with some seeing it as a visible symbol of lost civil liberties while others see it as an easy, if slightly inconvenient, way of taking the edge off the virus.

If new Health Secretary Sajid Javid’s prediction of 100,000 new cases every day comes to pass, which would lead to scores of deaths daily, the Government will be accused of rushing the unlocking when it could have allowed a little caution to remain across people’s faces.