Coronavirus Covid-19: United Kingdom, Prime Minister Johnson battens down the hatches. Daily press conferences to convince citizens

(London) Daily press conferences on TV. This is the latest initiative taken by Downing Street to reassure the British public opinion. The way the coronavirus crisis had been managed by Boris Johnson and by his consultants, Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance, does not seem to have gone down too well with the citizens. Even if last week the Government had decided not to ban sports events or public gatherings and not to shut down the schools, shops and restaurants, society did differently. The Premier League stopped, the shelves in the supermarkets were left bare and completely ran out of hand sanitizer, and some schools were closed down. According to the Prime Minister and to his consultants, stopping social life too soon would not work out, because citizens are not used to hearing the State tell them how to behave, but, as a survey by the Sunday newspaper “The Observer” found out, 44% of the respondents would like the schools to be shut down and 73% would like to work from home. Doubts have also been raised by the press about the “herd immunity” model, that is, the decision to expose most of the population to the virus so as to create a natural barrier of survivors who become immune. Today’s news is that the Prime Minister Boris Johnson asked the manufacturing industry to start producing respiratory support, maybe because he is aware that the British health system is not so responsive as that of other European countries. So far, 35 British people have died of the coronavirus, and 1,372 people have been diagnosed with the infection.
Valentina Bombelli