Not until the very day, March 16th, that I contract the disease – now this is a happy chance – do our rulers realise that although the theory of herd immunity is conveniently allowing them to let mass gatherings like the Cheltenham Races go ahead, it may unfortunately one day lead to 250,000 deaths.

The government immediately throw themselves into a desperate U-turn by opting instead for a conspicuously late lockdown.

No wonder I’m feeling that I didn’t need to get this bloody thing. It’s somebody’s fault. And I can tell you exactly whose.

*

I’m lying in bed sweating, equally bewildered by why our government have chosen to ignore the World Health Organization’s urgent advice that it’s essential to combine any lockdown with widespread testing, not just among health professionals, but among the population at large. The government are instead – hello, have I got this right? – suspending contact tracing – are they crazy or what? – claiming it’s not scientifically necessary. And yet how the hell are they ever going to control the disease unless they know who’s got it?

It doesn’t make sense.

In fact, nothing makes sense. At this point, I’m not sure whether to put this down to my delirium or theirs.

I keep waking in the night firmly convinced that right now – usually around 2 a.m. – is the perfect time for me to fulfil my mission. That I haven’t the foggiest what my mission is doesn’t seem to make it feel any less vital. One morning, in the middle of this week, Nicole has asked me how I’m feeling. I have replied, ‘One of my bodies is fine, but the others aren’t great.’ I have gone on painstakingly to explain that the virus has divided me into several separate identities which all sleep in the bed together side by side.

Clearly, I am off my head, though, as always when you are off your head, it doesn’t feel that way to you. But am I any more off my head than a government which can’t admit that they are dispatching front-line staff into work with Covid-infected patients without suitable protective clothing or equipment, in spite of the impassioned testimony of those same front-line workers that they are being sent naked to work?

And why can nobody who speaks for the government confess that because they were so keen to monitor the dangers to the NHS, they neglected the equal danger to workers and residents in the care-home sector, where deaths are set to rise to alarming levels?

Why are we moving our most vulnerable out of hospitals, where they are protected, into care homes where they aren’t?

Can anyone explain?

*

I can see this devilish virus seems to be cleverly retrofitted to find Johnson out. It’s smart. It knows how to play to all his worst weaknesses.