Who has a torch in the coronavirus darkness?

The big question is whether you want to focus on the 2020 bit of the Bank of England's illustrative scenario - which shows a hideous 14% fall in GDP, or national income - three times greater than the banking-crisis contraction - or the 2021/22 rebound, which shows losses recovered.

That rate of recovery is plausible but the honest thing to say about the economy, even three months from now, is we really don’t know what will happen.

The Bank says risks are to the downside, which seems right.

And it also points out that it will have purchased £200 billion of largely government debt by July, which is an indicator of how much new money is needing to be created to keep the lending rate at these very low levels.

Just as no virologist or epidemiologist has lived through a pandemic like the Covid-19 one, and our ignorance about it is daunting - as the Government's Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance has said - so too the economic ramifications are way beyond the direct experience of central bankers, finance ministers and economists.

Which is not to say we are powerless to take evasive action to protect health and prosperity.

But it is to say that the margins of uncertainty are off the charts.

More from Robert Peston:

• Why NHS 111 may need to rethink which virus sufferers go to hospital

• NHS Covid-19 app won’t work well unless infection is proven to cause immunity

• Should coronavirus sufferers be hospitalised before they are breathless?