According to BBC News, the UK government are thinking "very, very actively" today about stricter policies on social distancing.
I fully expect greater measures to be announced in today's briefing; it will be enforcement rather than guidelines at this stage though, as a result of a bill to increase the government's powers being discussed in parliament as we speak. In his briefing yesterday, Johnson made it clear what was coming, and with the growing pressure that is coming from doctors, epidemiologists and policticians en masse in the UK, surely a closure of non-essential businesses and/or a lockdown for all but non-essental workers will very likely come today or tomorrow (in London at least):
Doctor calls for more restrictions on movement in UK
As the UK government urges the public to follow advice on social distancing, some doctors are calling for more stringent measures.
Helen Ward, a professor of public health at Imperial College London, is one of a group of doctors who wrote to the Times newspaper on Saturday to warn the UK is "losing a very small window of opportunity to minimise the disease burden from Covid-19 and prevent a health system collapse".
She has told BBC Radio 4's the World at One programme that hospitals in some parts of the country like London are already filling up.
“We have to stop the pressure on the NHS... the best way to do that is to have a national lockdown," she said.
"We have to stop this non-essential travel and business and we have to enforce social distancing.
“If we don’t have these stringent measures now we will continue to see a steady growth in the number of cases."
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/covid-19-testing-and-restrictions-on-movement-krmzkx8kg
40+ of the country's "most senior scientific academics", comprised of epidemiologists and public health experts at UK universities:
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It's time for a lockdown and extensive COVID-19 testing: an open letter to the UK government
As of 20th March Italy’s Covid-19 death toll rose to 3,405 overtaking China’s, with 41,035 confirmed cases. Two weeks ago the number of cases in Italy was 2,502, fewer than the number of confirmed cases in the UK today. The UK is losing a very small window of opportunity to minimise the morbidity and mortality from the COVID-19 outbreak and to prevent a health system collapse. The government needs to enforce measures to reduce community spread and give time for the health system to prepare and cope.
Lessons learned in terms of public health response from those countries ahead of the UK in the epidemic curve need to be seriously considered and implemented without any further delay. These experiences, along with data, modelling and international guidance are clearly in favour of a package of enforced social distancing measures, extensive case finding, isolation and contact tracing.
Therefore, in response to this unprecedented national health emergency, we urge the UK government to implement an urgent enforced lockdown in the areas highly affected by the virus, while ensuring those most vulnerable in society are fully supported. This should be accompanied by building capacity to upscale testing, case isolation, contact tracing and strategies to identify asymptomatic carriers, starting with our dedicated healthcare professionals and then wide-scale community testing, in line with the World Health Organization’s recommendations. Also of utmost urgency and importance is ensuring adequate protective equipment to frontline healthcare staff. The specific steps towards achieving these actions need to be clearly and transparently communicated. Transparency is crucial to reduce public anxiety and ensure trust and solidarity.
Available knowledge and evidence from countries that have tackled the virus must be used, and be transparently and periodically reviewed to inform immediate and subsequent public health actions. Compassion and science both support the immediate actions we are advocating.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdkBXEWE3L_MzTjSVeykF9qUBmQy0K0pqB_fCznkB6nkXsGTA/viewform
David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham:
Boris Johnson must impose a lockdown now - David Lammy
In the UK, by the end of Saturday, we had reported more than 5,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 233 deaths. This is almost the exact number of cases and deaths Italy reported on 7 March. Two days later, the Italian government imposed a national quarantine. Even despite these extraordinary measures, which should start having an effect this week, in its latest figures, Italy reported 59,138 cases and 5,476 deaths. Its hospitals are overflowing far beyond capacity. Military trucks are transporting dead bodies to cemeteries in the country. The grim truth is that the UK is two weeks behind Italy, following a similar trajectory, with significantly fewer hospital beds.
The British government has failed to properly digest the lessons from the countries which were infected before us. We wasted precious weeks pursuing an outlier “herd immunity” strategy, which contradicted World Health Organization advice and has been criticised by many public health experts. On Friday, Boris Johnson finally, reluctantly, and reportedly only because of pressure from French president, Emmanuel Macron, closed pubs, restaurants and social spaces. But many other shops and public spaces remain open. This weekend, images of packed London parks and flower markets circulated on the internet. The prime minister has advised people to stay at home, but there are no measures to limit crowds on public transport. Lives are different, but Brits are still going out.
. . .
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/23/boris-johnson-lockdown-coronavirus-london[/b]
