It’s clear – as shown by the WhatsApp conversations revealed in The Telegraph’s Lockdown Files – that the ministers and officials imposing lockdown with such fervour were well aware of the possibility, and then the reality, of the collateral damage caused to millions. They pushed ahead with the controversial policy despite warnings the cure would be worse than the disease.

Amidst the election campaign and well away from the public eye the UK’s ridiculous “Covid Inquiry” rumbles on. The inquiry team is touring the country as part of the “Every Story Matters” project, allowing people to speak anonymously without giving formal evidence to the inquiry.

Our Covid inquiry is astonishingly drawn out – having started in June 2022 and scheduled to take evidence until at least June 2026. It’s a lawyers’ bonanza, paid for by us – with costs exceeding £70m last year alone and the final bill expected to reach almost £200m.

Rather than addressing the central question – whether, if the UK faces a pandemic similar to Covid-19, we lock down again or not – this Covid investigation has instead become a ludicrously expensive talking shop.

Meanwhile a majority of British scientists now believe ministers failed to pay sufficient attention to the long-term collateral damage of lockdowns.

It’s clear the decision to make the NHS a Covid-only service has contributed mightily to soaring waiting lists – which rose from 4.6m in February 2020, the month before lockdown began, to a record 7.5m now, according to NHS England. Survey evidence from the Office for National Statistics suggests the real figure could be almost 10m.

A study from University College London in February estimated that 12,000 years of life had been lost in Britain because of delays in diagnosing skin cancer during Covid lockdowns.