One thing we should have learnt from the pandemic is that we are all in this together. Only shared endeavour can rein in the Covid-19 virus. Your face covering is my protection.

Boris Johnson, though, is fed up with the rules. Collective action, the UK prime minister says, must be replaced by “personal responsibility”. What he really means is that he intends to allow the virus to run free in a dash for what epidemiologists call herd immunity. The nation’s children will be unwitting pawns in the experiment.

The rate of new infections in the UK is above 25,000 a day — much higher than in most European states. No matter. After 18 months of vacillation, swerves and U-turns, Johnson says his new master plan is “irreversible”. On 19 July virtually all legal curbs on social interaction will be scrapped.