You know what, I might be very wrong. My opinion - and yes it is an opinion - is biased on the idea of politicial communication being a significant factor in what is happening.
The government can not go from a declared containment strategy to a controlled management of spread strategy overnight.
There has to be a soft spot in the middle.
Why?
Because the public won't stand for such abrupt shifts and politicians don't like doing them because they represent a failure of strategy up to this point. There has to be an admission of this with an abrupt shift.
A soft change of tone is more palatable to the public and isn't quite as noticeable. Outside factors beyond the governments control can then be blamed.
The reality is at this point, unless we isolate ourselves from the rest of the world in a draconian fashion, that whilst coronavirus is epidemic anywhere we are going to face that too. And the reality is it is not feasible nor realistic to separate ourselves from the rest of the world. Hence all the fuss about no deal brexit last year. We simply do not produce enough food for our own population and we need revenue from exports.
A lesson of Brexit and Covid-19 and indeed in terms of climate change is that we should probably aim towards shorter, more self sufficient and sustainable supply chains (that encompasses both the ideology of the left and right). Not for nationalist aims and agenda, but because of the risk that any number of crisis can produce and that risk being greater if we are dependant on others.
I personally thought that the consensus on this thread, was largely that we had passed the point where it was a realistic belief that the disease wouldn't spread to this country. Clearly I've misjudged this mood.
I think our slow response and our rather inconsistent application of testing policy being managed by 111 was better understood in terms of it meaning that its likely there are many undetected cases out there spreading localised clusters.
We shall see how this plays out over the next two weeks, but the fact that the message from government is to expect a large escalation in the number if cases is not consistent with the idea of being able to keep covid-19 out.
And yes we do want to be on a fairly similar course to our nearest neighbours in how long this lasts because we don't want to be economically damaged longer than another country or be in a situation where like China we cut ourselves off via draconian measures at harder expense to the economy only for us to be hit with another wave of imported cases later on.
Managing the situation in line with our nearest neighbours (and trading partners) makes sense for both economic and health reasons.
I didn't think I was being terribly controversial in saying how things are moving along and the dynamic situation means we are being actively prepared for the next stage. That's what political communication is all about. Preparing and conditioning the public to accept certain ideas and messages.