Robert Peston: How will Boris Johnson choose between the joy of six and double bubble?
Here are the outstanding questions to be taken by the prime minister and the coronavirus strategy committee he chairs (CS) today about how far lockdown will be eased on July 4 and thereafter.
First, on socialising inside where we live; will we be allowed to meet with anyone we like indoors in groups of up to half a dozen, or will we be restricted to socialising with a single family or household of our choice with whom we would form a long-term "bubble"?
This is a choice between a rule more likely to be actually followed, namely the permission to mix with whomever we like so long as there are no more than six of us, versus a rule that the scientists believe is more likely to reduce the risk that the rate of viral transmission will increase dangerously again.
To put this in a nutshell, if the British people are now largely in a mindset to bend whatever rule is being set - and post the Barnard Castle eye test, they probably are - is it better to have a rule that is intrinsically more likely to limit viral transmission, than one that starts off being risky-ish and becomes very risky when bent?
If that is how Boris Johnson frames the decision, and I would expect it will be, then he will go for the two-household bubble.
Second, will indoor gyms and campsites be allowed to open because of the risk of transmission of the virus in shared shower facilities, inter alia?
I haven't a clue where this argument will end up.
Third, when we go to a pub or restaurant, will we be compelled to leave our name and contact details at the door, so that we can be contacted pronto if a flare up of infections appears to be linked to that pub or restaurant?
My hunch is we will be compelled to provide those contact details every time we go out for a drink or meal, however incongruous that may feel, because without that information the risk would increase that the test-and-trace system will lack the data to enforce very localised lockdowns as and when the virus surges.
The point is that the economic cost of resumed national or even regional lockdowns, as opposed to ones affecting smaller localities, look prohibitively large, based on what we have experienced so far.
Or to put it another way, registering to have a pint seems a relatively small price to pay as insurance we won't all be locked in our homes again.
On all of this, there is an apparent tension between virus prophylaxis on the one hand, taking the necessary steps to minimise the risk that a new Covid-19 flare up will wreak widespread havoc, versus giving us back more of our social and economic freedoms sooner rather than later.
But the tension is not as unambiguous as it seems.
In the end, it is a tricky judgement about what freedoms to give us back now that don't maximise the risk that within a few months they'll have to be snatched back again.