Orange Order has been decisive and done right thing on Twelfth

There are reports of churches in England having closed their doors for the first time in 1,000 years.

Top sporting tournaments, that have only previously been halted for world wars, are cancelled.

That an event as massive as the Olympics was postponed, which will cost hundreds of millions of dollars even if it can go ahead in a later year, is a sign of the scale of the global concern about coronavirus.

The Orange Order has done the right thing cancelling this year’s Twelfth, in which many people would mingle in close proximity. The arguments for not yet making that announcement were strong and it must have been tempting to defer it.

After all, the spread of Covid-19 is still poorly understood.

There are clear indications that the worst hit country in Europe, Italy, is plateauing, and perhaps Spain too.

There has for more than a month been a long-standing claim, from China, that its own battle with coronavirus has stopped the disease there (although many experts distrust such figures).

There are also hopes that health systems in some countries, including the UK, are not yet as badly hit as was feared. But the sudden admission of Boris Johnson to hospital shows that none of us know what news tomorrow will bring.

In any event, there is talk of a second wave of Covid-19 in the autumn, perhaps more deadly than this wave.

We will not know any of this for sure until there are anti body tests, which can give us an idea of the scale of infections, that can then be measured against fatality rates. No such reliable tests are officially approved in the UK yet. In any event, they become accurate 28 days after someone was infected.

That means it will be May at least until there is enough information to relax restrictions. That is close to July. Rather than wait until then, the Order has acted decisively now.