Britain’s initial response to the COVID-19 outbreak – opting for the more gradual “mitigation” over the more draconian “suppression” — has been criticized by some experts as an unnecessarily risky gamble (see, for example, Helen Jenkins, “The British Government’s Response to the Coronavirus Has Been a Disaster: It Dropped a Plan for ‘Herd Immunity,’ but the United Kingdom Is Still Moving Way Too Slowly,” Washington Post, 16 March 2020; and William Hanage, “I’m an Epidemiologist. When I Heard about Britain’s ‘Herd Immunity’ Coronavirus Plan, I Thought It Was Satire: Vulnerable People Should Not Be Exposed to Covid-19 Right Now in the Service of a Hypothetical Future,” Guardian, 15 March 2020).

Yesterday, Monday 16 March, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the United Kingdom was changing direction, replacing the mitigation approach with a version of suppression, which brings the United Kingdom closer to the policies adopted by most other countries (President Emmanuel Macron of France on Monday announced a suppression policy which is  more sweeping that that announced by Johnson).

Tom Solomon (“Coronavirus: The U.K. Approach Explained,” HSNW, 17 March 2020) explains the mitigation approach initially adopted by the United Kingdom. Another article (“From Mitigation to Suppression: U.K. Gov Changes Its COVID-19 Response,” HSNW, 17 March 2020) explains the reasons behind the U.K. government’s course correction.