WAS it really just a week ago that Sir Patrick Vallance and Professor Chris Whitty gave their worrying assessment of where we could be heading.

Everything is once again moving rapidly, changing hour-by-hour.

It was astonishing to see #SackWhitty and #SackVallance trending on Twitter after they said we could, without action, see 50,000 cases a day by mid-October.

Talk about blame the messengers.

Would people really prefer they tell us everything is OK, so we can put our heads in the sand?

Fortunately the government appeared to take the science seriously as we then got the announcement of stricter measures in England, and then the Chancellor's latest support scheme.

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Does it all go far enough? Only time will tell.

But we all have to hope so because if you don't act properly now it only leads to the loss of lives and hits the economy harder.

A second lockdown still isn't inevitable.

But if we end up in one again it will have been a failure of the Prime Minister's leadership, and the government.