Prof of infectious disease in the Guardian:
If the aim is simply to delay the peak of the outbreak till the summer, then perhaps the UK response is enough. However, WHO is challenging the world to do more and we know from China that aggressive curtailment policies can work to reduce numbers.
But following China, as Italy is moving towards, is not an easy path for many reasons. I would advocate for the UK to follow a more nuanced approach, such as that being adopted by Singapore; which appears to be effective to at least contain numbers of COVID-19 cases.
In this approach, extensive contact tracing and SARS-CoV-2 testing is able to rapidly identify new cases and fully isolate them. When put together with other social distancing measures (that do not include ‘lock down’ of areas – even the schools are open), some confidence is gained that the pandemic can be more controllable and shops can remain open.
To do this, the UK would need to rapidly increase its testing facilities and target to test every possible case, together with other social distancing tools to make this work. They could start by testing everyone in parliament to understand the nature of any cases there.
more testing, social distancing, contact tracing, full isolation - I believe this is the approach in Germany as well as Singapore?