I am certainly not in a position to understand the details of the strategies for virus management.
But, on the face of it (dare I say it..) the government's position makes certain sense. With no vaccine it seems logical that any measures will only delay the spread of the virus. But the actions range from almost none to total lock down. And the other side of the coin is disruption to lives and the economy. Which is an important factor, a big recession will harm people as well. Plus liberal democracies won't take to indeterminate lock-downs in the same way as possibly the Chinese system might. Lock down now and it is possible that when it is really required then people will have become complacent and unwilling to comply.
It is a tight-rope. And governments will only get recognised when they get it wrong. And not recognised in a good way.
I know nothing about virus management either, but hopefully am equipped with a little bit of common sense, and some fact finding ability which may or may not always be 100% accurate.
I think there are some factual issues with your post - but having read some of your posts, I suspect you won't mind me saying what I think they are, and I am saying it here only because such fallacies are the very basis of the decisions made by our Government, tragically:
"No vaccine" does not logically follow that "any measures will only delay the spread of the virus". There is still no vaccine for SARS (or the more recent MERS and EBOLA), but SARS was declared contained by the WHO in 2003, one year after it broke out. It infected 8000 people killing nearly 10% of them. It was "starved" out by isolation, like what China is doing with COVID-19 - do you know that China only found 25 new cases today, while Italy found 3500? I appreciate many do not believe Chinese statistics, with or without good reason, but if you look, you will see Korea is going the same way as China. If Italy had not been complacent, and had learnt the lessons from China, the Italian number would likely have been close to zero today, just like Hongkong's. So no, it is not true that measures will only delay the spread of the virus - measures can eliminate virus quickly leading to relatively very few if any ever getting infected, without a vaccine, and for a long time.
The above fallacy
is the very basis of the Chief Medical Officer's and Chief Scientific Advisor's rationale for getting "herd immunity".
You say "a big recession will harm people as well." That is patently true, however the question I would like you to consider, is whether an economy would be less damaged if only 5000 were infected, or 50,000 (the very minimum I wager Italy will end up with), or perhaps 40 millions (the minimum to achieve "herd immunity" in UK as our Chief Scientific Adviser has been suggesting)? Why would the former be a less preferred outcome, by earlier intervention, when it causes fewer deaths, allows earlier relaxation of intervention, less disruption etc.? How can that be inferior economically? We are only two weeks behind the bloodbath that is Italy - is that preferable economically?
You wrote "liberal democracies won't take to indeterminate lock-downs in the same way as possibly the Chinese system might. Lock down now and it is possible that when it is really required then people will have become complacent and unwilling to comply." I don't know what sort of period you are talking about that you think is required for "lockdown", but even in Hubei, they unblocked Qianjiang, a city of 1 million, two days ago. All Apple stores are now open in China apparently. In Hongkong, there was never even a lockdown per se, simply most people who could work from home did so, schools closed, mass gatherings stopped etc. What I do know, is that people in Hongkong are very glad they are not in Italy, or Britain. What makes you think Brits would think differently when they look across the pond towards USA in a few weeks' time? I hear people in Italy are angry that their directives from the Government came so late!
Apart from the Government's dangerous intention to court "herd immunity", which is utter nonsense because it will only be achieved after over 60% of the population are infected, and therefore the death of millions of Brits, it seems to me the government has only provided sound bites of aims. Aims like delaying the number infected, flattening the curve so that hospitals are not swamped etc. These are what Americans call "motherhood and apple pie" - notions that no one with a brain will ever disagree with and criticise, but are actually meaningless in terms of information on their strategy.
Knowing the strategy is important, because what the government is doing, or more accurately not doing, is anything but flattening the curve - we can all see that without serious intervention the curve is growing exponentially. What can possibly be the benefit of that?
In my view nobody knows what the government's "position" is - if we knew we would have understood how on earth a delay in social distancing e.g., will delay the explosion of the number infected, when it obviously WILL lead to far more getting infected and die, taking the economy/society longer to recover. How can it possibly be beneficial socially and economically? Do you know?
If you don't know, why would you say "the government's position makes certain sense"?
Why? At the time we had 2 young kids and MrsD did lots of baking so that was her main problem.
