Decisions, decisions. In this time of coronavirus, even making what should be simple decisions is getting harder and harder.

I don’t mean choosing whether to watch Tiger King on Netflix or all 10 series of Spooks on BBC iPlayer.

Or whether to just let your hair go long like some aging hippy or to let your wife loose on it with the newly-acquired hair clippers (that’s a decision I personally have to make in a couple of days).

No, I’m talking about those decisions that could turn out to be a matter of life and death, literally.

Let’s assume you have pains in your chest. You’ve immediately got a decision to make. Do you hope it’s just indigestion or a bit of muscle strain from all the lockdown DIY you’ve been doing or do you assume it’s something worse, like a heart attack?

If you think it’s the latter option, you then have another decision to make. Do you hope for the best or do you dial 999 and have yourself whisked off to hospital?

Of course, a couple of months ago you probably wouldn’t have thought twice about it. You would happily have got in the ambulance and given yourself up to the tender care of those good people at Leighton Hospital.

But now, hospital is the very place that those with Covid-19 are taken, in essence making it a hotbed for the disease.

And it looks like if you elect to take your chances at home, you’re not alone.

According to a report by Guardian chief reporter Stephen Topping, visits to accident and emergency at Leighton have plummeted during the coronavirus crisis.

New figures from NHS England show there were 4,343 A&E attendances at Leighton last month, recorded by Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

That was 32 per cent fewer than in March, and a 47 per cent decrease from in April last year, when there were 8,174.

Emergency admissions to Leighton also fell year-on-year, from 3,182 in April 2019 to 2,603 last month.

It’s not difficult to see why people are electing to stay away from hospital. It will be a combination of person fear over contracting Covid-19 couple with a desire not to burden overstretched NHS staff.

Stephen Topping’s report goes on: “This is a ticking timebomb in itself and it will be exacerbated by a myriad of other pressures in the coming weeks,” said Dr Nick Scriven, a past president of the Society for Acute Medicine. “There will be an ongoing need to keep people with coronavirus separate from others to prevent transmission.

“Attempting to manage increased demand will be very challenging.”

Personally, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I never need to make that decision.

So what’s another hard decision looming on the horizon.

Well, we have all those parents being asked to send their children back to school after months of lockdown.

Will it be safe for children? The science seems to be saying it will because children don’t seem to be badly affected by coronavirus but there again, the science also seemed to say that herd immunity would be the best solution in the first instance and look how well that turned out. Will it be safe for teachers and will it be safe for parents as children mingle with each other and then return home?

Again, this is a really tough call and one I’m glad I don’t have to make. If I had school-age children I think I would be extremely reluctant to send them back to the classroom while the current infection and death rates are as high as they are. But interestingly, my wife believes that she would send a child back to school.

I’m not convinced the science is clear enough at the moment for parents, teachers or even the government to make that decision with any certainty.

But there is a difficult decision I may have to make in the next few weeks.

I have been working from home and actually went into lockdown the week before it was officially implemented.

We have been really strict and careful and haven’t taken any unnecessary risks. While I can work from home (I like to believe I am just as effective working at my dining room table as in a Manchester city centre office block) there is no doubt my employers are keen to get back to normal and have already started suggesting we should all return to the office.

But for me, that would involve a rush hour train journey and I really don’t fancy that one little bit while the North West R rate is still so high.

So if I’m required to go back into the office, what do I do? I’m still not sure. It’s a tough call. Do I opt for the financial stability of continuing to work or do I risk my health by getting on a train, travelling into Manchester and being in an office with a load of other people?

I think I know which way I’m leaning. As my granny used to say: “They don’t have pockets in shrouds.”