"Keep calm and wash your hands" ("Stay calm and wash your hands"). France may close its schools from Monday, March 16 – just like Belgium – and Germany will limit the gatherings of more than 1,000 people, in the United Kingdom, Thursday, March 12 in the evening, the Johnson government and most the country's top health authorities continued to play the measure.
In London, the underground seemed barely less crowded than usual. Farther north, in Edinburgh for example, many Scots continued to shake hands as if nothing had happened. As if the Coronavirus storm was still far from the British coast.
However, the radical measures taken against the pandemic by the Irish neighbor on Thursday morning (Leo Varadkar, the acting Prime Minister announced the closure of the schools) have opened the valve of criticism. What if Boris Johnson did not do enough, not quickly enough, even if the epidemic clearly lags behind the rest of the continent (590 patients Thursday evening, and ten deaths across the country)? What about the NHS, the notorious understaffed British health care system after ten years of conservative austerity?
Thursday afternoon, after a crisis meeting, the Prime Minister certainly announced the transition to "phase two" of the national response to the pandemic (containment), and recommended self-containment for a week of all those with symptoms of the disease. School trips should also be canceled and he advised people over the age of 70 to avoid cruises.
Placidity
Boris Johnson has even, for the first time, adopted a particularly serious tone, recognizing that it is "The most serious health crisis in a generation", that this disease was much more serious than the seasonal flu "Because of the lack of immunity", and finally, that "Many more families will lose loved ones prematurely".
However, there is no question at this stage of following the Irish example, or even Scottish, said Johnson flanked by Patrick Vallance, his "Chief scientific officer" (chief scientist) and Chris Whitty, his "Chief medical officer". The two professionals estimated that the peak of the epidemic would reach the country only in "Ten to fourteen weeks", ie late May early June. Earlier today, Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who had been invited to the same crisis meeting, drew different conclusions. Meetings of more than 500 people will be banned there next week after the number of cases more than doubled in twenty-four hours, reaching 60 sick Thursday.
