The schools situation is even worse in rural areas such as mine, Dave. Loads of the children are bussed in from all over the place, sometimes from a radius of ten miles or more, then spend all day up close with their mates catching God knows what then taking it back into their villages.

The vaccines have done a tremendous job, Dick, call them what you will. They don't stop you catching the virus but they have cut down hospital admissions and deaths to a tenth of what they were last time the infection rate was this high. That is unarguable. Of course we need more hospitals, Dick. They take a while to build. They need to be equipped. Not least, there aren't enough doctors and nurses to run our current hospitals. Long-term aspirations are admirable, but we have a current emergency that needs dealing with very quickly with the resources we have to hand right now.