Coronavirus: What the change in government advice on coronavirus really means

Analysis: Health correspondent Shaun Lintern says Whitehall has now accepted the coronavirus will spread and the focus is on handling the fallout

The government has formally moved to the delay phase of efforts to combat coronavirus (Getty)

There is a growing acceptance within Whitehall and No 10 that large numbers of the public are going to be infected with coronavirus – the attempt at containment has failed.

The government’s strategy has shifted and is now focused on marshalling the resources of the entire government machinery and the NHS in to coping with what could be an unprecedented surge in demand for critical care.

But while some European countries have moved to ban large gatherings and close schools, the UK government has held back from such measures. Why?

One answer is that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction and the government’s science advisers are weighing up the impact of closing schools versus the inevitable impact on parents, some of whom may be doctors and nurses, who may have to stay home to look after their children.

This brings huge economic impact.

In addition the closure of schools does not guarantee children will not still congregate and spread the virus anyway, only in an environment where there will not be repeated warnings to wash their hands.

Ministers have also weighed up the options on banning mass gatherings of people. They’ve resisted this so far on the basis it is unlikely people will infect large numbers at, for example, an open air event. Even if gatherings were cancelled, people might still mix and congregate.

In comings weeks, we may see restrictions on indoor events and gatherings of fewer than 1,000 people where there is a greater risk.

Officials today suggested as many as 10,000 people could already be infected with coronavirus as the number of confirmed cases in the UK jumped by 134 in a day.

Holding back the tide is no longer seen as an option and indeed the idea that the UK population could now be protected from the virus is seen as unrealistic among senior health figures.

As more detail emerges about the crisis in Italy’s intensive care services, where there are large numbers of seriously ill patients, the dominant concern within the UK government is preventing the collapse of the health service.

It is not true to say the evidence dictates one way or the other how things will develop. The coronavirus epidemic is an unknown and the science of epidemiology can only help so much.

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The government is as much in the dark as the rest of us.

The controlling fear within Whitehall is no longer how to prevent the disease spreading within the UK – that is a certainty. It is how the Department of Health and NHS England cope with the demand for intensive care beds and specialist respiratory care.

Chief nurses have been warned to expect a several-fold increase in intensive treatment unit demand and NHS bosses are working round the clock on plans to find as much spare capacity as they can.

This is likely to include large-scale cancellation of non-urgent hospital surgeries as well as using private hospital bed capacity, redeploying nurses and doctors and volunteers to care for patients in makeshift intensive care wards and bringing back recent retirees.

While the government is talking about delay, many in Whitehall are already at the mitigation phase and aiming to lessen as much as they can the consequences of this newly declared pandemic.