Speaking to scientific experts and advisers today about the current state of play, they paint a pretty pessimistic picture about the options for lifting lockdown. Full details on @LBC with @eddiemair coming up, but also.../THREAD:

Transmission of coronavirus in the community has fallen significantly under lockdown. R number is now estimated to be 0.7, meaning the epidemic is on the way down. BUT there is real concern about the spread in hospitals and care homes. This is now driving the number of new cases.

There are now effectively two epidemics: one in hospitals/care homes, the other outside those settings. The second is on the way down, the first on the way up. Some experts blame govt for lack of PPE & testing. Others say NHS & care home managers need to do more to stop spread.

While the number of cases in the community is thought to have peaked, transmission will increase again as soon as lockdown measures are relaxed. Government advisers have been desperately trying to find a solution to this dilemma, but with limited success.

Most people I spoke to were pessimistic about the options for an "exit strategy". There were doubts about use of face masks, new drug treatments & mass testing and even about the effectiveness of a future vaccine. So some distancing measures will be needed "for a long time".

But there is also real concern about the impact of lockdown, with ONS stats y/day showing 6,000 excess deaths in week of 3 April - only just over half of which were attributed to Covid-19. Government v aware of potential for lockdown to cause as many deaths as the virus.

So ministers face an awful choice: keep lockdown in place and accept the deaths it causes, or relax it and see more people die from the virus. Some experts see an argument for letting epidemic "run faster" to "get it over with". But they're well aware of the consequences of that.

There is, in short, no easy option. As one scientist put it: "It’s a dreadful decision to have to make. There’s no easy way out of this - it's all horrible. Every way you look at it it's horrible." /Ends