When an inquiry into the State's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic takes place, it is likely that the Government's decisions in recent weeks will come into sharp focus. When restrictions were eased in December, ministers hoped case numbers would remain stable over Christmas. "Israel went into lockdown No.2 before us. [They] got their numbers down and have stayed there for a month so hopefully we'll get a decent stretch of Level 3," one minister told me on November 28. But this didn't happen and the Coalition is now braced for thousands more infections and scores - if not hundreds - more deaths within weeks.