We forget that flu once plagued the economy as coronavirus does today

The epidemic of 1918-21 is overshadowed by war and the Great Depression. But it holds lessons for us still

It is a sobering thought that, according to the many well-researched accounts to have appeared in recent weeks, this Johnson/Cummings government seems to have been prepared to risk 250,000 deaths from the policy of herd immunity". This approach was, mercifully, laid to rest after the intervention of Professor Neil Ferguson, of Imperial College London, on 16 March. There followed the introduction of lockdown and what some of us prefer to call physical distancing."

Commentators have been putting the 27,000 or more deaths in this country attributed to the virus so far in the context of the 60,000 civilian deaths recorded during the second world war. This is bad enough. But I wonder how many people are aware that during the Spanish" flu epidemic of 1918-21, which followed the first world war, the estimated loss of life in this country was, well, 250,000?

Sunak is doing his best to do the right, Keynesian thing with the economy, and has realised the importance of the state