At the peak of the pandemic, the press and commentariat revelled in making hasty international comparisons between Britain’s performance on cases, deaths and testing, and the EU’s. Even when the data was not like for like. Readers may have noticed that the comparisons have stopped leading the discussion for a few weeks now. Might the media, as per usual, be deliberately ignoring good news?

On testing, Britain is now carrying out more than any other European country at over 200,000 per day – including 2.6 million more tests than Germany. Even with such high testing rates, Britain is now reporting fewer Coronavirus cases than many European countries. Britain now has only 9.6 cases per million vs the EU’s average of 12.5, and is well below France and Spain’s record.

Guido’s keen to ensure readers know about the good news when it exists…