I think Boris will do a lot of back tracking in his clarification this afternoon.
A lot of companies will be very aware of social distancing and will be trying their best. DH's company has contacted them this morning to say stay at home working from home, we're gradually getting those who want to work at the office back. They did a huge questionnaire a few weeks ago asking who was happy to carry on working from home, what problems people were having with working from home, what help they needed IF there was a return to the actual office and they're working with that information.
There was a man on the radio last week who runs a removal company. They've tried to implement social distancing rules. They ask that the home owner who is moving does a deep clean of furniture (good luck with that but they are trying), they wear masks and they wear gloves. They have company overalls and have arranged for everyone to get more so they can be washed after every move. But, as he said, you can't move a heavy piece of furniture within social distancing rules. If it's a table that's a metre wide, that's the gap between operatives. And that's fine because it's obvious that you've done your best.
The point is these are good companies. For every few of these you'll have the ones, like the construction site employee who called in on the same radio programme, who don't have masks, don't have social distancing and are told to get in or leave their jobs. Exactly what do those employees do? Refuse to work? Find another job? Report the company? To whom?
A lot of people will be using public transport. Some don't have a car, some don't like driving in big cities, some can't afford the parking. Of those people, some will be told they can stagger. But we've all seen people, even on here, who don't like the idea of their teams even WFH because they don't trust them, as adults, to work properly.
Try explaining to that, distrustful, manager that you had to let three buses go because they were 'too full' for you to be safe. I would imagine their thoughts would go along the line of 'yeah, right. I got in so you can get in if you hauled your backside out of bed a bit earlier, so I'm not having too many of these conversations....'.
I've had similar conversations during transport strikes. I had a boss tell me to get up an hour earlier if I couldn't get on a bus (at 5am in the morning!) And I was (still am) someone who gets in early and leaves late - I will admit I wasn't after that, not for that company. So I can imagine what some employees are up against.
It's fine for people like me, who are working from home and getting paid, to say 'well, wait for the other bus' or 'tell your employer you've got to work from home' or 'don't go back to work if you don't have to'. It's another thing to be on the other side of the fence.