The government seem to have been going in circles ever since day one of this crisis.
My own considered view is that BJ is taking another massive gamble with what he said this evening. Like everyone I fully realise there will come a time when we will make to make some move to restart the economy, but I am far from convinced that we have yet reached that stage.
Yes, the number of infections and deaths each day and week has fallen a bit compared to a month or so ago, but my worry is that if restrictions are eased even slightly, it could (and IMHO likely will) lead to another surge in the number of new cases and deaths, rather like what we saw in late March and early-mid April. In my view, the lockdown which has been in place since 23rd March needs to remain in place until the much talked about "R" number is below 0.5 across the UK. Things are still far too precarious as they are.
I agree with you David about things being in a precarious state right now. From such a high base number it won't take much to take us to defcon 5, or whatever it is. Something is responsible for the continued high infection figs, be it 4k each day or the 18k to 20k a day it might be? There surely can only be a few things it can be, supermarkets, public transport, other. In the last couple of weeks numbers in the north west and north east have increased apparently.
If the information for England was available, it would be good if someone could extract data down to postcode/town level to at least try to ascertain if the current high infection rates are completely nationwide, or if they are concentrated on a number of hotspots.