More from the official plan:
The Delay phase – next steps
If the disease becomes established in the UK, we will need to consider further measures to reduce the rate and extent of its spread. Based on experience with previous outbreaks, it may be that widespread exposure in the UK is inevitable; but slowing it down would still nonetheless be beneficial.
For example, health services are less busy in the summer months when flu and other winter bugs are not driving GP consultations and hospital admissions. In the 2009 ‘swine flu’ pandemic school holidays significantly slowed transmission of the virus.
We will increase publicity about the need for good hygiene measures (hand washing, and catch it, bin it, kill it) and further promote the need for people with symptoms to stay at home for the full duration of their illness.
Other action will be considered to help achieve a Delay in the spread of the disease. We will aim to minimise the social and economic impact, subject to keeping people safe. Such judgements will be informed based on the best available and most up-to-date scientific evidence, and take into account the trade-offs involved.
Action that would be considered could include population distancing strategies (such as school closures, encouraging greater home working, reducing the number of large-scale gatherings) to slow the spread of the disease throughout the population, while ensuring the country’s ability to continue to run as normally as possible. The UK governments’ education departments’ planning assumptions include the possibility of having to close educational settings in order to reduce the spread of infection.
We would consider such measures in order to protect vulnerable individuals with underlying illnesses and thus at greater more at risk of becoming seriously affected by the disease. The effectiveness of these actions will need to be balanced against their impact on society.