Hello and welcome to the podcast. We recorded this podcast earlier this evening before the announcement that Boris Johnson had left intensive care was released by number 10. A number 10 spokesperson, as tonight said, the Prime Minister has been moved this evening from intensive care back to the ward where he will receive close monitoring during the early phase of his recovery. He is in extremely good spirits. That's the only part of tonight's

podcast that is slightly out of date. So thanks for bearing with us. And here now is this week's

podcast. Hello and welcome to this week's ITB politics podcast. We hope you are well and safe,

whether you're working from home, caring for loved ones, trying to care for yourself,

or still going to work. Thank you for listening to us. It's almost three weeks since Britain was placed into lockdown,

and that lockdown is not about to end any time soon. Sadly, coronavirus deaths are still rising. We are not yet at what the scientists call the peak of this virus.

There are those some,

perhaps small signs of positivity in the data. More on that shortly. But when will our lives

return to any kind of normality? And what is the exit strategy, the plan to get out of this

lockdown without the virus spreading again? For now, there's no answer from the government on

that. Let's not undo the gains we've made, said the Foreign Secretary Dominic For now, there's no answer from the government on that.

Let's not undo the gains we've made, said the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, the man standing in for Boris Johnson, who, as a Thursday evening, as we recall, this podcast is still in intensive

care at St Thomas's Hospital in London. He is in good spirit, say number 10, and is taking positive

steps. Then there's the testing. The government's

aim is to reach 100,000 coronavirus tests a day by the end of this month, given we are not yet

even at 20,000 a day. It seems an ambitious target, but this is a fast-moving story. I'm Daniel Hewitt.

With me, as ever, is my colleague Sheehab Khan. Hello, Sheehab. Hello. And joining us later will be Robert Peston. Also on

this week's show, we have A&E doctor, Dr. Alex George, who talks pretty candidly about life on the

frontline tackling COVID-19 at Lewisham Hospital. But first, Sheehab, look, your thoughts,

kick the podcast off on another pretty extraordinary week. Yeah, look, your thoughts, kick the podcast off on another pretty extraordinary week.

Yeah, well, I mean, you've touched on what was sort of the major news story of the week,

and that was the Prime Minister being sent to intensive care. That's been dominating the

...