Coronavirus: Is a key figure that shapes our economy now useless?

With some of the data used to create the Consumer Prices Index – like air fares – absent for this month, economists are having to find an alternative, says James Moore

Airfares feed into Britain's Consumer Prices Index. How does the ONS proceed now no one's flying? (PA)

Inflation is falling, and economists are talking about it slipping still further through the course of the year, perhaps to zero.

The Office for National Statistics said the 12-month figure for March was 1.5 per cent, down from 1.7 per cent the previous month and some way south of the Bank of England’s 2 per cent target.

The unprecedented times through which we are living are already having an impact, and it is going to get bigger. Will it even be possible to produce a figure for April?